The Walking Dead: Season 2 Episode 4

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

I started and finished episode 4, Amid Ruins, of The Walking Dead season 2.

This was one of the best episodes in the series by far. It was exciting, suspenseful, emotional and filled with difficult decisions. The last episode ended with the crew trying to escape their camp because of a walker horde. They had covered themselves in zombie guts and were attempting to walk by the horde. I don't want to spoil details, but we lost a person to the walkers and the group was splintered in the chaos.

Clementine was with two people. Rebecca, the pregnant woman, and Jane, the tough lone wolf. We escaped and walked through the woods to try and find our friends. When we reached the meeting spot, we found three people. Bonnie and Mike were safe and healthy. However, Kenny, the only remaining character from the first season, is now extremely depressed due to the events at the camp. Clementine tried to talk to him but it didn't really work out...

Jane and Clementine went ahead to scout and found out that Nick is a now a walker. They kill him and find that Luke and Sarah being ambushed by zombies. We attracted the walkers and joined them in the building. It was a fucking scramble to get everyone safely out of there. Luke is hurt badly, but not bit. Sarah is a fucking mess though... Her dad died and she seems to be in shock. We escaped through the skylight and brought everyone back to the group.

We were in a former civil war tourist site and Rebecca's baby was clearly ready to pop out, so we had to find a safe place for her to give birth as well as food and water. I decided to go with Jane to scope out a nearby observation deck while Mike and Bonnie checked out a museum. The observation deck turned out to be a pretty nice place. We met a stranger who was carrying medicine. Jane wanted to steal the meds, but I convinced her to let the kid go.

Clementine is a natural born leader

I then went to the museum to check on Mike and Bonnie. While it wasn't a good place for a baby birth, we found some water and a nice confederate coat. When we got back, walkers were invading the area, so the whole group made a run for the observation deck. We were attacked by the chasing walkers and had to bring down a part of the structure to protect ourselves. During that time, Kenny was helping Rebecca give birth to the baby! It was completely insane and really stressful. The incident cost us the life of one of our companions though and Jane sadly decided to leave the group...

The baby is alive and well, but we have no food and it's cold. We decided that we should leave for a nearby town that seemed like it could offer shelter. Rebecca was clearly very sick during the trip... As we got near the town, we were ambushed by a group of people, including the stranger with the meds we met at the observation deck.

Then it all goes to shit, someone else dies and the game cuts to black. I really loved this episode and can't wait to see how this season wraps up in the last episode.

Grid 2

Date played: July 29th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I completed the third season of the WSR using the Nissan Skyline. The four race series was fairly easy but the last race was a bit rougher as I fought until the last second to keep first place. The WSR is now ready to be an international Motorsport and has received sponsorship from ESPN and a prime time TV spot for all races. This means night racing, big crowds, a bunch of ESPN ads and fireworks everywhere!

The Corvette soars through the American mountains at night

Season 4 starts with a bang as I completed a few vehicle challenges with some awesome cars. I have a Viper and a Corvette now, both of which are tons of fun to drive. They are powerful yet still easy enough to drive to be entertaining. I also did a few promo events. Finally, I played the first event in the WSR series for season 4. It's set in the USA with tracks like New York and Miami, but at night.

Grid 2

Date played: July 28th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

I'm almost done with the 3rd season of the WSR. The Asian season has been interesting and seems to have more events overall. I should mention that I've been playing all the special time trials that unlock vehicles as well as all the promo events that have special cars and race types. I had a fun time driving a BAC Mono during one of the special overtake events. The BAC Mono is an open wheel, light weight race car that runs like a fucking dream.

There were many drift events which I completed in a Honda S2000. That thing drifts easily and looks great as it roars through the mountains, puffs of smoke in it's trail. It doesn't hurt that I gave it a hot pink paint job... I also completed many checkpoint events.

Yas Marina is fun to race on

Yas Marina is a great circuit track. I ran a BMW 320 Touring car on it and really enjoyed how it drives. It's a grippy car, which works well with a circuit track. There are penalties for going off track and cutting corners, so the racing line is more important than ever on this track. The beautiful seaside view, cool looking buildings, fireworks and night lighting make this track a pleasure to navigate. I have one, 4 leg event left to win before I can move on to season 4.

Grid 2

Date played: July 27th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

I just fucking love racing games. It's easily one of my favorite genres and unfortunately, there aren't that many great games in this genre in recent years. Codemasters is one of the few companies that still makes a real effort to make good, modern racing games.

I love racing even more when it's this gorgeous

I played a large chunk of Grid 2, making it through a lot of events in the third season. The tracks are all in Asia, featuring Honk Kong, Dubai and a few other places. Dubai is a very cool location for racing where many of the tracks are set around high rise construction sites.

There are three new event types here as well. Touge is a weird, one on one race with two rounds. The cool thing here is that if you gain a 5 second lead, you win by default. Also, you are disqualified if any contact is made between the two cars. Checkpoint races are straight out of an old arcade game. The objective is to travel the most distance in the allotted time. Driving through checkpoints adds time. It's a nice change of pace, but it feels out of place in this game. Finally, there is also a drift event. I only played one of them which was extremely short, but it was fun. The objective is to amass points by doing big drifts.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Date played: July 27th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I've done it. I've installed dozens of mods for Skyrim and everything works as expected, at least so far. It's actually pretty simple, but it took me a solid three hours to get everything running. I used a very well made guide on Reddit to guide me. The variety of mods is incredible... I started with unofficial patches. Then I've added 250 different weather effects, improved character models, custom armor sets, redesigned bottles and vials, high definition book covers, new water effects and foliage, some improved 3D graphic meshes, improved blood effects, a complete revamp of the UI and something that removes the UI when it's not needed. There are a few minor ones too but in the end, I think I picked a good selection.

I tried it out by exploring Riverwood, gathering a few quests, selling items and making a few potions and armor, though I had almost no materials to make anything interesting. I got my first follower, an elf archer and bought a couple of spells.

My battle-mage in full leather armor

Whiterun is my next big destination, but I figured I would do one of the quests I got in Riverwood first. The town's trader had a dragon claw stolen from him by bandits nearby. I like my fighting style so far. I use a few arrow shots to weaken enemies when I spot them from afar. Then I've been using a mace and a fire spell at the same time to take enemies down. While I am not able to block, so far I've been able to handle the weak enemies thrown my way. I made it through the entire cave and retrieved the claw then headed back to Riverwood.

I sold my loot, turned in the quest and went back to the forging area. I think forging it one of the most important skills in this game as it grants access to the best armor and weapons. I spent some time making armor and weapons and upgraded my light armor set. I've reached level 3, but I haven't selected any upgrades yet, I'm still not sure how I really want to build this character.

Original Xbox racing special

This game looks amazing for it's age

Date played: July 26th
Platform: Xbox
Session fun rating: 9/10

I picked up a few racing gems in a retro game shop in Quebec City as well as a component cable to allow 480p display in supported games. For the original Xbox, the loot was Burnout 3 Takedown, Outrun 2, Forza Motorsport, Project Gotham Racing 2, Rallisport Challenge and Rallisport Challenge 2.

I first tried Burnout 3. This game was an instant classic when it came out, mainly due to it's intense arcade racing and the infamous Takedowns, which were spectacular at the time. The game still holds up wonderfully and is still incredible fun. I only played one track, but any worries about the age of the game dissipated within that race.

Then I tried out the two Rallisport Challenge games. Again, these are high quality games that still hold up well today. In fact, Rallisport Challenge 2 looks better than most Wii games... I prefer the handling and feel in the second game. I played a few legs of classic rally racing in both these games and had a good time. One thing I was surprised to see is that the games were made by Dice, now famous for Battlefield. I would give an arm and a leg for a new quality rally game...

Finally, I gave Outrun 2 a quick look. This is a true arcade game in every sense. I mean, the whole objective is simply to beat the checkpoints before time expires. The branching paths add some nice variety, though in my three runs, I couldn't manage to beat the third segment.

I still have a couple of games from the lot to try, but those will have to wait another day.

Mario Kart Arcade GP

Date played: July 25th
Platform: Arcade
Session fun rating: 7/10

I was on vacation in Quebec City and was strolling through the Galeries de la Capitale shopping mall when I was stunned to see a Mario Kart Arcade GP cabinet! I didn't have much free time, but I just HAD to play this at least once in my life. Using Donkey Kong, I played through one race on a jungle track.

While the game was pretty fun, it was really fucking weird not having a "hop" button to drift. The drifting was done automatically by the game and I don't think there were mini-turbos. While the normal green shells and bombs showed up, I also found a really cool tornado item that sweeps the field in front of the player's kart. I'm glad I got to try this rare arcade game. 

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Date played: July 22nd
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 8/10

What am I doing with my life?!?

I've played over 100 hours of Skyrim on PS3 when it came out and it was one of the best games I've ever played. Now, I have a badass PC and the legendary edition which comes bundled with all three DLC packs was on sale for 15$ on Steam...so I bought it again.

The first time around, I hadn't bought any DLC, and the PS3 version was a complete mess. I played through the intro sequence and into Riverwood. I made a Red Guard this time and I think I will make it some sort of battle mage. Magic in one hand, something blunt, spiky or shiny in the other.

Skyrim.... again

I really only wanted to check out how it looks for now, so I stopped when I reached Riverwood, but I was not disappointed. I am running it on the highest settings, in 1080p and the framerate just doesn't drop. It's quite refreshing after the PS3 version's blurry, choppy mess. Considering the firepower in my machine now, I don't intend to play this game again until I've had a chance to install some of the crazy mods out there first.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Date played: July 21st
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 8/10

I bought Starcraft 2 when it first came out but never really played it very much. I'm not a huge real time strategy player, but I love the story and setting of Starcraft, so I'm not really sure why I stopped playing.

Jim Raynor, the star of Wings of Liberty

Armed with my new PC, I decided to give the game another go. Of course, I can easily max out all the graphical settings at full 1080p resolution and the frame rate doesn't dip at all. I played 4 missions. The first two are really basic tutorials, but then I got to choose missions. I went with a mission where we had to rescue some colonists from the Zerg by escorting some transport vehicles. I abused bunkers to protect entry points and sent firebats, marines and medics on the road with the transports.

The other mission has me assault a Protoss archaeological site. They were being attacked by Zerg from a different route at the same time, so I had to hurry to beat the Zerg to the punch. I sent the rocket equipped marauders along with some marines, firebats and medics into the fray. When we reached the artifact, three giant stone statues came to life to protect it, so we killed them all. 

Grid 2

Date played: July 20th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I played a whole lot of Grid 2... I completed the second season which was set in Europe. A lot of the street racing took place on the streets of Paris and Barcelona. A few were set on the Red Bull Ring which is a short but really fun track. There were also a few on Cote D'Azur, another fun track. I tried out a new event type, Overtake. I enjoyed it quite a bit... The objective is to overtake as many trucks on the track as possible without having any collisions. Every time a truck is overtaken, the score multiplier goes up. At first I was hitting everything in my path but I soon learned to drive smoothly to achieve high scores.

The Mercedes 190 E has served me well

My favorite car so far has been a Mercedes 190 E. It's classified as balanced, so it can drift a bit if needed, but is also very stable. It's also pretty fast for it's class and looks really classy. I spiffed it up a bit with some nice pastel colors and used it in many races. Now that the Europe events are completed for this tier, I am moving on to Asia. I was awarded a Nissan Skyline to start the series, good start!

Grid 2

Date played: July 19th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

In the last 6 years, I've played my PC games on two gaming laptops, a Dell and an MSI. While it was very practical, the performance wasn't always as good as I hoped. I've been thinking about this for over a year, but I finally pulled the trigger on a desktop gaming monster! With the latest i5k processor and a GTX 770, my beast is ready to rock.

Fuck yeah!

Grid 2 is a game I love, but has to stop playing due to performance issues on my laptop. It's the first game I installed on my new machine and I was not disappointed! I have a nice setup in my basement with a 55 inch TV, surround sound and a controller. I was able to run Grid 2 on it's highest settings at 1080p with the smoothest framerate I've seen. It really looks fucking incredible...The lighting and reflections are particularly jaw-dropping.

I played half a dozen events and won them all. This includes a few eliminator events, a couple of races, a time trial or two and a special race to unlock a Mercedes. 

Emergency Multiplayer Procedure

Date played: July 17th
Platform: Xbox 360/PS3
Session fun rating: 10/10

Something special happened last night. My brother called me and asked if he could come over to download an Xbox 360 game since he doesn't have internet at his new house yet. He brought his 360 and that's when a series of unfortunate events played out.

First was that he didn't bring his cables, thinking we could just use my existing setup to plug in everything. The problem was, my 360 has been in storage since April 2012 when I played Mass Effect 3. I rummaged through my stuff and eventually found the power cable and component cables. Then, when we plugged the 360 and were prompted to do a system update. Now, I have no idea why, but it failed many times, giving a weird error message. I searched on the internet a bit and found that I could update via USB stick. I downloaded the update on my PC, formatted my drive to FAT32, unzipped the file and plugged in the USB stick. Thankfully, this worked and we now had the latest firmware.

When we tried to connect to Xbox Live to go buy the game on the store, we discovered that my brother didn't remember his account password. Sitting on the floor, my brother used my phone to complete the password recovery process, which required that an email be sent to a different email address to gather a recovery code. With that in hand, he was able to reset his password. We went back to Xbox Live and were able to log in!

Xbox Live showed no mercy...

The game he wanted to buy was Trial Fusions, the latest in the 2D, motorcycle platforming series. We found it on the store and tried to buy it. BAM! Invalid credit card. Fuck. We updated the credit card and were able to purchase the game. Then of course, because the world was conspiring against us, we get an error saying the hard drive is full... Back out to the home menu, delete Limbo and a couple of demos and we were able to finally download the game. It was quite a technological adventure!

While we were waiting during these many processes, we managed to get a few games in. The first was Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate: Core Fighters. This is a free to play version which I had downloaded a while back on my living room PS3, AKA, the Netflix box. There are only 4 characters available and few stages but it still plays very well. I've been a longtime fan of Dead of Alive because I just love the mechanics of it. It's fast, flashy and the countering system is very cool. We fought with Ryu Hayabusa, Ayane, Kasumi and Hayate. Most of the matches were really close. I enjoyed playing as Hayate quite a bit. He's a bit more technical but is powerful.

We then played some Trials Evolution on 360, a game my brother has played to death. I first did a few runs on my own on easy tracks to get a feel for it, then we went into a multiplayer game and raced each other. It was awesome, though he's clearly better than me. We also played a few rounds of the Bomberman Live demo because, well, it's Bomberman and it's fun.

Finally, when the Trials Fusion download was finished, we tried it out a bit. It starts off with a bang as the game is set in the future and has some really impressive backgrounds, though the graphics looked a little weird. Maybe it's because they were made for newer hardware? Who knows... My brother also bought Puzzle Bobble Live, but we haven't tried it.

What a night!

NES Remix

Date played: July 17th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 7/10

This year's Club Nintendo Platinum reward was a choice of free downloadable games. I already own or played many of the choices, so it came down to NES Remix vs Game & Wario. NES Remix looked pretty cool so I chose that.

The game is an odd mix of NES games remixed into very short challenge levels. The games featured so far are Super Mario Bros, Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight and my personal favorite of the offering, Excitebike. Most of the challenges are quick and simple, but can be difficult. For example, I had to jump over a number of barrels in Donkey Kong within the time limit. Depending on how well the player does, a star rating is assigned, which unlocks special "remix" levels.

The first two remix levels were from Super Mario Bros. The first one had me defeat a number of enemies on 1-1. The twist is that I had a permanent invincibility star. The second one had me navigate a level with jumping fish, but I had no control over movement, only jumping. It's all pretty simple, but still
fun.

Strider

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

More Strider, more cyborg-chopping action!

I made some progress through the city and found the entrance to a large tower of some kind. I acquired a few upgrades along the way. I now have a double jump which is really fun to use and very useful in combat. I also unlocked the ability to reflect shots back at enemies using the sword.

Chopping up ninja ladies

The enemies are a little bit tougher now, taking three hits to kill in most cases. There are also napalm-tossing robots that are cool to fight. I fought a couple of bosses. The first was against two ninja sisters, one with a pink laser gun and the other with a blue shield power. I sliced them up pretty good. The other boss was a lot tougher. He's a flying bounty hunter with amazing weapons. Pattern recognition is a pretty big part of this game which make the bosses interesting. I like this game. It's simple, but it is well executed and fun to play. 

Strider

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

PS Plus just keeps giving me quality games to play... Strider is classic series which I only played a little bit on MAME emulators a few years ago. It's about a ninja who cuts stuff, mainly robots. Also, he has a really cool scarf.

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The game is a 2D Metroidvania game where the ninja must destroy enemy forces. This is a real video game in all ways. It's dumb, it's fast and it's fun! I made my way through the first area, the outdoor section of a military base. I also explored another sector that is much bigger, set in a city.

This is exactly the type of game that it appears to be. There aren't any big surprises, but it's very well made, looks great and is fast as hell. There are tons of upgrades scattered around the level and dozens of enemies to slice through. The combat feels good and the upgrades have all been useful so far. The highlight of the game so far has been it's bosses. There are a lot of mini-bosses which are fun to learn and fight and I think I fought only one real boss. It was a giant mechanical dragon of death! Armed with turrets, an electrocuting shell and little flying drones, it tried it's best to defeat me, but I made it to the head and smashed the beast to bits. 

Stick it to The Man

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

Ray escaped the mental hospital successfully. Most of the folks from the carnival seem to have been considered insane and have been incarcerated in the spooky building guarded by large nurses armed with electroshock weapons. As expected, the whole place if filled with non-sense.

Alien in a granny suit

The things I did to escape were pretty wild. I met a ghost child hosting a tea party with a moldy stuffed bear and a scrappy, deep-voiced rabbit. I helped an alien in a granny suit that flew away with her inflatable duck belt. I unleashed a serious man's second personality by giving him great music to dance to. I found a taxidermist woman who likes dead mice so much, she followed me around when I had one in my pocket. I scared a little dude by sticking googly eyes to his friend's face. I charged a battery by dropping it between a man and his electroshock inducing nurse. Etc, etc, etc.

In the end, I flew away on an dead, inflated and stuffed whale. Yes, this game is insane.

Civilization V

Date played: July 14th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

The Iroquois have sent a colony to Alpha Centauri and won the game!

I'm ready for Beyond Earth!

Yep, I have achieved victory through mastery of Science! I was REALLY close to a cultural victory but since Beyond Earth is coming out soon, I decided to send my civilization into the void of space. I had to push hard for it though. My cities were thriving, each of them having more than 30 population. I bought many great scientists with faith, grabbed the ideology bonus that allows buying spaceship parts with gold. I had tons of gold from my trade routes and buildings, so I completed the spaceship rather quickly.

I cannot fucking wait to play Beyond Earth, I bet it will be amazing...

Civilization V

Date played: July 13th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

My Iroquois nation is now thriving and has wrestled itself into the dominant nation of the world, though Bismark and his Germans aren't too far behind. I've stuck to 6 cities which seems to be a good balance. I have tons of wonders, including the beautiful Eiffel tower. I've been focusing on culture and tourism a lot which fits my play style pretty well. I also have a growing religion and relatively good relations with other nations. My army is pathetic, though if needed I could bring out some big guns using the great production potential of my cities. I've even managed to help build the world fair which gave a huge boost to culture. Science could be better, but it's all right.

The Effel tower is a powerful wonder

At this point, I think a cultural victory would be easiest to achieve, though a scientific one still seems possible. Diplomatic could be done as well but one nation is always causing trouble, so they have been hard to manage. 

Stick it to The Man

Date played: July 13th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

It's rare that a game is actually funny, but Stick it to The Man pulls it off.

This is an old school 2D adventure game with a few platforming elements. It feels a lot like something Tim Schafer would have made. It has the weird adventure game items and scenarios and a style the reminds me very much of Psychonauts. It's also pretty damn funny for the most part.

Ray is a dumb dude who works at a construction site. He gets hit on the head by some alien artifact and grows a weird spaghetti hand on his head. He can use this to grab stickers that are used in puzzles, pull himself on ledges, slap stickers on stuff and read people's minds.

Stick it to The Man is a weird, wacky game

The game has tons of weird settings too. In the four or five levels I played, I visited Ray's mind twice and explored the city and a carnival. It's all completely insane, as are the scenarios. My favorite so far was about getting a ride home. The whole situation is about a man who is about to hang himself. He wants to kill himself because his pea-brained girlfriend left him for an old dude with shiny teeth. So the whole level is about finding the man some nice new dentures. To do that, I had to find a cannibal chef, steal a hand he was cooking, bait a crocodile with the hand, steal the croc's teeth, stick those on a little dog, which scared off some mob dudes, free the man in the mob's car trunk, send him to the local dance competition, have him win against the brainless girlfriend and have the old fart choke on his own teeth and spit them out. Of course, I grabbed the fake choppers, gave them to the depressed man and his dumb girlfriend came running back.  The man then agreed to give me a lift home in his car.

Yep, this game is fucking nuts.

The mind reading stuff is cool as that's where most of the hints come from. The platforming is pretty dumb though. One level was focused on avoiding bad guys and honestly, it was pretty boring. The mechanics are too simple for it to be any fun. I really like all the adventure puzzles though.

Trine 2

Date played: July 12th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

This is one of those posts that doesn't really need to exist, but here it is anyway. I have a weird history with the Trine games. I played and finished the first one over a very long period, then tried the Trine 2 demo on PS3, and finally played the first few levels on Steam. Today, I played it again but on PS4 as it was free with PS Plus. This post sums up exactly what happened today.

Trine 2 is gorgeous in 3D

I played it in French this time, as my daughter was watching so I figured she would like to understand. I also played in 3D. It looked fucking incredible. The frame rate is still great and the added depth makes an already pretty game even more stunning.

Civilization V

Date played: July 11th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

My mistress calls and her name is Sid Meier's Civilization V. I picked the Iroquois nation and a map modelled after the North American East Coast. The Iroquois are pretty cool as they get nice bonuses for forest tiles. I was lucky enough to start in the North of the map, which of course is full of forests, deer, foxes and other forest based elements.

My Iroquois nation spans 6 major cities

I started off a bit slow. I had problems early on with my cash flow and aggressive barbarians. I also had some problems with happiness. I had good production though which helped me kick-start everything else. It wasn't too long before I had 6 cities, covering the east coast and a bit of central North America. I don't have a real focus, but I'm doing well in everything but money so far. I have a pretty strong religion, good production overall, a good amount of wonders and have started a bit of tourism. Science is doing all right too. My military is decent, but nothing that would win a war. The other civs have been relatively quiet, and I have good trade relations with Germany and a few city-states. 

Watch Dogs

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

I finished Watch Dogs!

The last few missions wrap every loose end in a pretty satisfying way. It started with Aiden finally getting a lock on Nicole's location by scrubbing some audio in the background of his last call with her and Damien. He heads to the place and hacks his way into the room she was held in, kills a guard with an explosion and guides Nicky away from the bad guys and into a getaway car. I met her at the place Jackson was staying and put them in a car. It quickly became clear to Nicky that Aiden was the vigilante... Aiden decides to bring them to Pawnee so that they can move out of Chicago and be safe. The mission had me drive them there while avoiding dozens of police patrols. They then had a heartfelt good bye.

Next up was Lucky Quinn. I had discovered that the mob boss is the one who ordered the hit on Aiden... So of course, I assaulted his office which is inside a large hotel. I sneaked my way through and finally found Quinn in a bullet proof safe room. There was a whole speech there and Quinn revealed a video that explained how he was able to blackmail the mayor. Then Aiden hacked his pacemaker and watched him die from heart failure. Fucking cold, man.

Aiden prepares for the final showdown against Damien

Then I hunted down Damien Brenks. He managed to take full control of ctOS, which means he was screwing with Aiden by using hacks and other weird tricks during the entire mission. I had to shut down three devices so that I could gain access to the main ctOS server. The whole time, I had dozens of cops on my ass and the GPS navigation was all messed up. After a few failed attempts, I succeeded and shut down the entire network, creating a complete blackout in Chicago!

I managed to pinpoint Damien's location at the lighthouse on the east side of town, so I grabbed a boat and confronted him face to face. Aiden was betrayed by his business partner Jodi who pulled a gun on him because Damien hired him... With a bit of clever hacking and some brawn, Aiden managed to overpower him and was forced to kill Damien with a bullet to the face.

In the epilogue, Aiden releases all the data stolen from Iraq to the press, creating pandemonium. It is also revealed that ctOS 2.0 will release and will be made available world wide, hinting at the possibilities in a sequel. I really liked Watch Dogs overall. It's well made, polished, varied and fun. I think there's a lot more that could have been done with the hacking mechanics and maybe it would have been a better game if it didn't have so much shooting, but it was a great experience. It's also my first ever platinum trophy after years of Playstation games, so that's pretty cool.

Zen Pinball 2

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

I was pretty tired last night, so I decided to play a bit of pinball to relax and have some mindless gaming fun. I played a few rounds on the Fear Itself table featuring Thor and a huge serpent. I then played a bit of the Boba Fett table, the Empire Strikes Back table and finally, the Hulk table.

The Hulk table is really fun

One thing I should do is spend a bit of time reading the table rules for each table as some are pretty obscure. It's kind of complicated though and the images aren't that great so it's hard to really parse what's going on. Either way, pinball is always cool.

Watch Dogs

Date played: July 8th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 7/10

Fuck you Pawnee drinking man. Fuck you.

I got the Social Lubricant trophy. I started by beating the drinking guy downtown, which turned out to be very manageable, if not exactly easy. Pawnee was a whole different story... There are thousands of complaints on the internet about this trophy being too hard, but with practice, determination and an hour to waste, I managed to win and beat level 10 against all three men. This means that as soon as I complete the campaign, I will have my first ever platinum trophy on Playstation!

I played through four missions of Act IV. I can smell the ending, as there are only five missions left in the entire game. Aiden met with Clara and T-Bone at the bunker. As they were working on decrypting the data recovered from Iraq's fortress, a hacker known as Defalt infiltrated our system and stole our data! He also revealed that Clara betrayed Aiden by giving his name out to someone...though I didn't catch who. Aiden pushed her away and got to work trying to trace Defalt to retrieve the data.

I found some clues by infiltrating a building's database while T-Bone retrieved some hardware nearby. I then had to protect him from thugs as he escaped. It gave us clues, but no data. I then met with Damien to negotiate a bit and stall him. Aiden and Damien are at a sort of stalemate... It was enough for the bad guy to still send a bunch of cops on the hero's tail, so I just drove away and hid until I escaped.

Defalt is an awesome character

We then went after Defalt who is an extremely skilled hacker who performs EDM shows in a club. The guy is so good that even Aiden's profiler was fully hacked. It displayed tons of funny stuff meant to tease Aiden. I infiltrated his systems and hacked my way through the most complex mini-game yet. When I broke through, Defalt escaped in a car so I chased him down. He used the tricks I normally use against me! He broke steam pipes and hacked traffic lights to slow me down, though I eventually crashed him and his fancy car into a telephone pole.

Watch Dogs

Date played: July 7th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 2/10

So.... this is going to be one of the most stupid posts on this blog in a long time...

I have almost all the trophies for this game since I played so much of it and most of it didn't require that I go out of my way to complete. However, one of the mini-game related trophies still eludes me. It requires that I beat 10 levels of the drinking game against all three opponents. I spent a lot of time going through one of them and completed it without too much trouble. Another one I already got to level 5 because it offered a nice shotgun as a reward earlier in the game, so I just have 5 levels left with this one.

At least I'm done with this guy...

The last one is giving me trouble. I made it to level 5 but the timing is really fucking tight on it and is really difficult. These are all quick time events where I must match the analog stick location and button presses before time expires. It's simple, but the targets are hard to reach within the time limit. Plus, there are a lot of phases to each level and if I fail, it's a boring 2 minute jog to the bar to retry. I'll keep trying though as this would be my first platinum trophy after all these years.

Watch Dogs

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

I played through Act III and completed all the side quests in the game. I found all the missing persons, all women with blood diseases, and tracked down the killer. He was a deranged psychopath who was trying to get caught that also had a blood disease. He went down with a quick bullet to the head. I also collected all of Maurice's phones and it's clear that he was coerced into doing what he did. It's also clear that he deeply regrets and suffers from Aiden's niece's death.

The story is moving along at a nice pace. It started with Aiden tailing a Blume helicopter with a dirt bike through the rural Pawnee area. I then took out a big crew of Blume thugs in a trailer park and got enough information to assault the company's office nearby. This was a cool mission as I had to stay undetected, which gives me a chance to play with the cool hacking toys at my disposal. Now that I have big weapons and tons of explosives, straight up shooting segments devolve into third person shooting straight out of Gears of War with a bit of GTA mixed in, so the stealth stuff feels good.

After clearing Kennedey's, AKA T-Bone's, records from the ctOS server at Blume headquarters, I found out that Damien Brenks revealed that T-Bone is working with me to Blume. Of course, this meant a huge firefight. It was held in T-Bone's junkyard which is filled with robotic traps. I used these traps to kill everyone then we ran away to the bunker in Chicago.

The campaign is starting to feel like a high tech Gears of War...and that's cool

Finally, I continued the assault on Iraq's server by going in there with guns blazing. I have to say, Aiden Pierce is one brutal motherfucker... I killed all enemies in there, often with the LMG and grenades to reach to server room and steal all the data. Once I was done, I had to confront Iraq himself on the rooftop. He sent a very heavily armored guard which I had to pummel with explosives including IED's, grenades, grenade launcher rounds and a few environmental hacks. I then took out Iraq and his empire and left with the precious data. I now have to meet Damien to make the exchange for Nicky.

Mario Kart 8

Date played: July 6th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 7/10

Damn, I feel like I had some really bad luck tonight. Again, I played with my girlfriend online in split screen, but this time, the other players really had my number. Many times, I dropped from 1st, 2nd or 3rd place to the end of the pack. Blue shells, red shells, green shells, bananas, invincibility stars, piranha plants, bob-ombs, bloopers and lightning bolts all conspired to hit Bowser...

Mario Circuit is one of my favourite tracks

I'm a fighter though, so I always tried my hardest to reach the top of the pack. While I managed a few podiums, I haven't won tonight. In one disgraceful race, I even finished dead last in 12th... It's the first time that this happened and I hope it will be the last. My girlfriend is improving every day and is giving me a run for my money on some tracks, though she still struggles on the more complex tracks. 

Watch Dogs

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

I started with a few side missions. I found the last QR code and completed it's final mission. It had the most complicated hacking segment in the game, a labyrinth of wires and connectors that took me a good amount of time to solve. I also completed the human trafficking missions which ended in a convoy type mission. I just had to kill everyone so I put a car on the road, stuck a bunch of IED's around it and waited for the fireworks. They all died within 4 seconds and it looked amazing.

I then completed Act II. The last mission had me using video cameras to guide Bedbug to a secure server room in Iraq's stronghold. I had to show the man where to go using the video cameras and keep guards off him by hacking different items. Finally, when he got in the room, I got partial data from the heavily encrypted computer while Bedbug was caught, but spared by Iraq.

Back in the bunker with Clara, Aiden discovers that in order to decrypt the data retrieved, he would need to find the person who encrypted it in the first place. The man is named Kenney and has been in hiding for a year because he acted as a whistle blower on Blaine, the ctOS creators. I traced his last online footprint to an old computer in a warehouse. When I got there, tons of dudes were waiting for me, so I took them out. Reinforcements arrived and because there were so many, it felt a bit like a segment from Gears of War or something, as I lay behind cover and spit out a hail of bullets from a light machine gun. A couple of dudes ran away and hopped into a fire truck, which I then had to take out. It turns out Kenney is hiding in Pawnee, the rural area to the north west of Chicago.

An old ctOS tower

To find him, I had to find a way into an old ctOS tower that is supposed to be inactive. This was more of a platforming section as I had to rotate the large satellite arrays in a way that would let me get to the secured basement of the place. I activated the tower which revealed a safehouse, the last missing persons mission and another burner phone on the map. It also gave me information on Kenney. I followed the clues to the local watering hole, a little bar in town. I asked around for Kenney when I was approached by a man who seemed to know him. We drank together a bit, then he attacked me! Of course, that was Kenney himself and he was scared that I was a cop or a Blume hitman.

After a bit of talking, he agreed to help decrypt the data, but only if I helped him get back into Chicago. He is exiled because ctOS monitors his body's metrics and can recognize him at all times. If I can hack hack into the right server, I might be able to erase his profile on ctOS and get his help. I started by getting him his van back from some gangsters... I don't know why, but it was a cool mission. I killed the gangsters, stole the van and drove it back to Kenney's junk yard. That place is incredible... He has built tons of automated defenses, most of which are robots that look like monsters and dragons. It's really cool...

Mario Kart 8

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

This green shell missed me by an inch!

Another night, another successful run in split screen, online multiplayer with my girlfriend. I've stuck with Bowser and last night's setup and my girlfriend stuck to Toadette and her usual setup. I won a few races and mostly placed in the top three, though I had a few rough races. My girlfriend did well too, beating me once or twice. My ranking is up to 2300 or so. In one race, I managed to stay in first place for the entire three laps. I used tried and true tactics to do it. Go fast, keep the racing line and keep a defensive item in tow as often as possible.

Skylanders Swap Force

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

There was a sale on Swap Force and my daughter loved Giants. Not only that, I have a bunch of figures that are lying around, so I picked up Swap Force and an extra figure. Of course, the big hook here is that some Skylanders can swap their feet and heads, making for some really cool combinations. The game comes with Wash Buckler, Blast Zone and Ninja Stealth Elf. Wash Buckler is a pirate with squid legs, Blast Zone is a bomber with jet boots and Ninja Stealth Elf is...well, she's a fucking ninja. I also bought Fire Kraken, a fireworks wielding dragon thing.

I played Giants on Wii U, but now that I have a PS4, I figured that would be the best way to play. Right out of the game, Swap Force looks MUCH better than the last game. Everything looks great and is animated wonderfully. Also, I was glad to see that a jump button was added to the game which makes it feel a lot more fun to navigate.

Swap Force looks great and is more dynamic

I played through the first level, fighting enemies and trying out my new Skylanders. There are new areas that are specifically made for the new guys. For example, I required the climbing legs of Wash Buckler and the rocket boots of Blast Zone to navigate these special areas. I LOVE Fire Kraken. He's fast, throws fireworks and can even transform into a Chinese ceremonial dragon to ram into enemies. After the level, we found a city which acts as a hub for the rest of the game. 

Mario Kart 8

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

Once again, I had a blast playing Mario Kart 8 with my girlfriend online. It was a weird night though, many of our lobbies were fairly small, sometimes with as few as 6 people. It was pretty cool still, because it led to having a lot more room on the track and fewer random item hits. In fact, that's when my girlfriend managed to get her first win!

She was rocking Toadette with the cat cruiser kart and a new set of slick wheels. The added speed really seems to help her a lot. Now, I have to say, I have a bit of credit on this win. Late in the third lap, she had managed to slip into first, but I was in second and picked up a red shell. Instead of going for the win myself, I used my shell to defend and kept pursuers at bay, helping Toadette maintain pole position.

My girlfriend's winning race

I used a new combination too. I went with the super heavy Bowser, a pipe frame and some button wheels. It gives me the same speed as my DK setup, but better handling and a bit more weight, which has been useful for knocking people around in bigger lobbies. This has been VERY successful for me. I won many races last night and almost never dropped below 3rd place. I think I found my new favorite setup!

Mario Kart 8

Date played: July 3rd
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 9/10

My girlfriend and I had a great time playing Mario Kart 8 online again. I tried a different kart combination today, using DK with the Circuit Special kart and some button wheels. It works pretty damn well and earned me my first win in a while. I did fairly well overall. My girlfriend was pretty good too, she even beat me in one of the races!

DK shrieks in joy as he speeds past Mario

The best race of the night was on Rainbow Road. It's full of fun turns, big jumps and anti-gravity twists. I got really lucky at one point during the second lap. I was in third place and got three red shells. I hit second place with two red shells, overtook him, shot the last red shell at the leader and sped towards him. I got another item along the way. In an incredible twist of luck, I scored a blue shell while sitting in second place! This is likely never going to happen again... I took advantage, went to first place and held it there with speed and a good racing line to finally win. It was really awesome... You can watch the highlights below.

Pikmin

Date played: July 3rd
Platform: Gamecube
Session fun rating: 8/10

My daughter just loved Pikmin 3, so I bought the first Pikmin game on Gamecube a while back. She's been looking at the box quite a bit and today, she finally convinced me to plug in the old 'Cube to fire up the game that started it all. 

The original three

We played the first two days. One thing that I remember being really weird about Pikmin 1 is that there is a very strict time limit to finishing the game. There are 30 parts of Olimar's ship to collect, and 30 days to do so. So far, we've gathered two pieces, so we are still on track, but I remember that's why I never finished the original when it first came out. 

The mechanics have been much refined with Pikmin 3, so it's a bit rough coming back to this one, but it still plays well and the core concepts haven't changed that much. The graphics have though. While Pikmin 3 is fucking beautiful, Pikmin 1 looks pretty shitty overall. I found red and yellow pikmin, but no blues yet. Day 3 awaits!

Watch Dogs

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

I played through a few missions in Act II. It turns out the briefcase I was tracking was about a secret auction held by Lucky Quinn, the Club mob boss. After a bit of investigation, I discovered that the auction was for women to be used as sexual slaves... I found out by hacking one of the bidder's phone who was shopping for a high end car. It ended in a chase sequence where I rammed the pervert into a telephone pole and knocked him out.

I then took his identity to get the invite from a nearby club where I met the lady assigned to me as a gift, a woman known as Poppy who attacked me, but soon changed her ways as she saw I was here to help. When I went to the auction proper, I found a disgusting world of people who enjoy buying others for sexual pleasure. The flavor text for this stuff is truly awful and disturbing. After meeting Lucky Quinn and picking up Poppy, it was clear that my cover was blown. Someone got suspicious I guess. I left the girl there and promised to get her and her friends some help. I snuck out through the basement and shot up a few guards, then called the cops, hoping that they would discover the auction.

The human trafficking auction...

That's when I got a call from Jackson's temporary caregiver, saying he went missing. I tracked him down by finding his tablet on the ctOS and went in to rescue him from some sort of factory. He went there because he saw a truck labelled "Racine", the men who kidnapped his mother. I came in, killed everyone and found Jackson hiding in a security monitoring room... It turns out he saw Aiden kill all the guards and was completely traumatized, rightfully so.

A new set of side missions opened up where Aiden must hack some auction bidder's phones, then invade their homes via ctOS and scan their briefcases to get them on the police's radar. I'll be playing through those before continuing the story...

Watch Dogs

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

I played through a few missions in the campaign for Watch Dogs, as well as completed the Weapons Cache side missions. The finale to the Weapons Cache missions was pretty cool. I had to assault a massive enemy base where three different waves of increasingly difficult enemies showed up to kill my ass. I took them down by using many different tools.

The Viceroys gang gets fucked up by Aiden

Aiden and Clara tracked the IP address provided by Damien, in the hopes that if it leads to the data he needs, he will release Nicole. This turned out to be quite a task. The IP led to a criminal stronghold in an area of the city that is isolated from the real world. No cops, no ctOS, no laws. The mission had me navigate the building to gather information using only the cameras of the building. It was pretty cool and well made. In the end, I discovered that the man leading this place is a guy named Iraq. He is fucking crazy, violent and dangerous. I need to get inside, so the best solution was to get a snitch.

Aiden picked a man called Tyrone "Bedbug". He is Iraq's cousin, so I started tailing the man. The campaign missions are very varied and polished, it's really nice to see that in an open world game. For example, to tail him, I had to move around a little neighbourhood unseen. I had to take out tons of guards to make it safely across. It kind of felt like Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell, which was cool. I managed to get some dirt on the guy and was ready to make a deal.

I tailed him again until he was alone, then confronted him and asked him to cooperate. When he saw the information I had, he was pretty quick to agree. The last mission I played had me follow a briefcase that was heavily guarded by Iraq's men. I forget why I was doing this, but it was a cool mission nonetheless. I watched some men exchange the suitcase around half a dozen times when one of them slipped away in a boat. I followed him on a bike, then found the briefcase in a nearby marina. 

Watch Dogs

Date played: June 30th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I played through a few missions of Watch Dogs campaign. It started with an assault on a ship yard. The gang who attacked Jackson and kidnapped Nicole had their headquarters there, so Aiden thought it was a good idea to get in there and try to interrogate the leader. It was sort of like a gang hideout mission except it was a bit more scripted and had great music. After I hacked a computer and left a room, there was an automatic slow motion effect as I was confronted by a large armoured man. I then chased down the leader with a car and figured out that he couldn't help me much.

Then, as Aiden goes back to his motel room, Clara, or Badboy17, shows up. While they talked, someone intruded the apartment and started shooting up the place. I'm not sure who it is, but we had to fight our way out through dozens of thugs. On my first attempt, Clara was shot and I had to restart. I was more aggressive the second time and escaped.

Clara told Aiden about a legendary bunker that was supposed to be cut off from ctOS, so it seemed like a nice place to set up. To get there, we had to track down a local dude. He is the only person we found that was able to move the bridge that leads to the island bunker. I found him playing poker, played a few rounds with him to get information, but he started running away. I chased him on foot and convinced him to give us the remote to the bridge.

I then got on the island and activated it's power supply by finding three switches throughout the yard, which was filled with containers and cranes. When we turned it on, we managed to get inside the bunker and discovered some amazing networking equipment that is invisible to ctOS. It seems like we found our base of operations.

Aiden and Clara's new base

I also completed the last criminal convoy mission. Amazingly, the target was Olivier Garceau, the CEO of Abstergo entertainment from Assassin's Creed IV. It was a rough one too, with quite a few enforcers and some limousines to destroy.