The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Date played: May 30th
Platform: Switch

Breath of the Wild is starting to get it's hooks into me... It's weird, the game is similar to a lot of other open world adventure games, but it has a bit of a different philosophy. Usually, open world games litter the map with icons of things to do and places to go. Zelda is different, where the map doesn't show much except location names and the layout of the land. This means that it encourages real exploration a lot more than other games.

I found myself messing around in Hateno Village, speaking to everyone, visiting the shops and just walking around. After doing this for some time, I decided to take care of a side quest that required me to go to Hateno beach and kill 7 monsters there, who have been causing problems for a farm in Hateno Village.

I walked towards the beach, taking pictures and gathering items as I went. The view was spectacular, with the ocean nearby and lots of big hills and cliffs. I ran into some new enemies, found some new item types and fought monsters that were a little too strong for me.

The 7 monsters at the beach were not easy to kill. The group of Bokoblins and Moblins were much stronger than what I've fought so far. They had more health and more dangerously, stronger weapons. This also meant that I got to play with some new weapons, including a very reliable spear. One thing that's been bugging me a bit is that one handed weapons are kind of rare it seems. I much prefer them to two handed weapons, but I often have to resort to the latter due to the game's durability system.

Fighting at Hateno Beach

After clearing the beach of enemies, I went back to Hateno to turn in the quest, then went to Kakariko village to learn about the photo memories. It seems that I have 12 pictures in my album that were taken by Zelda herself back before Link was frozen in time. I must figure out a way to get to these locations based on the pictures to unlock "memories". I have a feeling it's gonna be pretty hard to find them.

I'm not sure what I want to do next, but I feel like I should probably start heading in the direction of a Divine Beast, though I'm sure I'll run into a ton of fun shit to do along the way.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Date played: May 29th
Platform: Switch

Well, I'm on a trip for work for a couple of weeks, so it was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the Switch's portability. I figured I might as well get back into Zelda, since I ignored it in favor of Horizon for a long time.

When I first booted up the game last night, I had forgotten the controls and was scrambling to figure stuff out again, but after a few minutes I was ok. I also decided to bring my Pro controller since it's so much better than the Joy Con. This was a wise decision... Everything feels just a little bit better with the Pro controller.

I had left off at Hateno Village, but I haven't actually explored the village proper yet. Instead, I spent some time fiddling with the new picture taking abilities of my Sheikah Slate. I ended up wasting so much time just taking pictures of stuff I ran into... It's kind of fun really.

Then, I got a bit frustrated because I got a quest to go to Hateno Beach, but I didn't have the map open for this area yet, so I spotted the tower in the distance and headed there. I fought a few enemies on the way, which was a good refresher for the game's combat system. I even practiced parrying with my shield when I found an unescorted enemy.

I practiced parrying with this guy for a while

Parries are difficult to pull off though. Locked on to the enemy, Link must have his shield raised, then the parry button must be pressed just prior to impact. The enemy is then stunned and loses hold of it's weapon. It can be followed up with strong jumping attacks and such. It's a great move, but it's risky... The window of opportunity is very short.

It turns out, that damn tower was a lot further than I expected. It didn't look this big from a distance, but when I got there, I was surprised by the height of this building. The climb was fun, as I had to navigate through some spiky thorns that grew around the structure. I got to the top, got my map filled out a bit and jumped down, gliding across a large river to safety, towards Hateno Village.

Back in town, I started lighting blue-flamed lanterns, scattered around the city. I don't know why I did this, but it's quite satisfying. That's because I can now spot Hateno Village easily in darkness from a distance. I then decided to complete side quest that asked for a picture of a specific mushroom. I headed towards the nearby forest, fighting Bokoblins, Moblins and Keese. I got my picture and turned in the quest.

Now here, I got a little confused, because the dude at the lab showed me how to unlock pictures of the past, or something. I didn't quite understand this part... I stopped playing at the entrance of the village, so I'll start exploring it next time I play.

I'm starting to find myself just walking around, killing some stuff, picking up some stuff, taking pictures of stuff, doing other dumb stuff. I love it! I'm also noticing some serious performance improvements since the last time I played, which was prior to any real patches. The game runs noticeably better in general, so that's really cool. 

Day of the Tentacle Remastered

Date played: May 28th
Platform: PS4

To kill a few minutes before bed, I played juuuuuust a little bit of Day of the Tentacle. It's nice to have a relaxing and funny adventure game like this to play once in a while. Last night, I did a few things, but the most important was that I managed to power up both Hoagie's and Laverne's time travelling porta-potties.

Laverne had the best scenario, as she had to find a way for the dolled up mummy to win the human contest. The three categories are hair, smile and laugh. The first thing to do was to eliminate the best competitor by throwing fake barf on the floor next to her. The guards believe the human to be sick, so they disqualify her. Great!

My friend the inanimate mummy, shown here in the human contest of the tentacle people.

The fork that held up the spaghetti and meatballs wig on the mummy worked wonders and awed the judges. The horse dentures made for a nice, big smile. The judges discussed if whiteness mattered or not, since the mummy's teeth were disgustingly yellow, but in the end they decided that size was the most important factor. Finally, the robotic voice box stolen from the mutilated corpse of a balloon clown impressed the judges even more than the spaghetti wig! "Ha. Ha. Ha." the voice box emitted. Our mummy won the human contest!

I did other weird shit like this with Bernard and Hoagie. Hoagie's quest was a bit duller, but still, it had exploding cigars, smoke signals, a canary that doesn't need to feed turned into a smoke alarm, etc. All sorts of dumb, funny stuff.

The only thing left to do is find a crystal so that Bernard can power his time machine. I think I'm close now, since I know I have to get the contract signed, but I have to explore a bit more first.

Overwatch

Date played: May 28th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is a badass push as Soldier 76 on Anubis point B.

I survived an absurdly long time, fighting off spawn campers, since we had been having problems pushing for the last 3 or 4 minutes. Thankfully, I got a ton of kills from safety, then pushed forward when the momentum was on our side. I used Tactical Visor to attack the choke point, then our Mei used hers, trapping a group of 3 in the corner, fresh for the picking! I rushed in and shot them all to death, then with our Reinhardt just catching up to the play, we took the point in a flash. It was a very fun "life".

Overwatch

Date played: May 27th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is classic Lucio on Lijiang Tower. Lots of action, lots of Ultimates and lots of jumping around! I die at the very end of the round, but it was enough for us to capture the point. Lucio is great at just staying alive and on point, which matters more than you could think.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered

Date played: May 26th
Platform: PS4

I wanted to play something slow and relaxing late last night, so I booted up Day of the Tentacle. I still had a few ideas to move stuff forward, but none of what I was doing worked. You see, old adventure games like this are particularly inscrutable at times. I had to resort to a guide to progress unfortunately. Seriously... Here's one example from last night.

Mattresses, Rubber Mice and Cartoon Animals

1. As Hoagie, use mattress with bed
2. Use bed to make it squeak and distract nearby cat
3. Steal rubber mouse from distracted cat
4. Send rubber mouse to Laverne in the future through the time travelling toilet
5. Use Boo-Boo Be Gone lotion on fence
6. Scare black cat away to make him go under the fence
7. Cat now has appearance of skunk because he rubbed his back on the white creamy lotion when he crossed the fence
8. Lure cat-skunk hybrid with rubber mouse and put cat in pocket

I don't even know what to do with the cat-skunk hybrid yet! So playing this is super weird and kind of frustrating, but using a walkthrough is letting me enjoy the game's great sense of humor, well written dialogue and fun animations while still being able to progress without going nuts. And this was just one example of many!

Getting a safe combination by recording a sleepwalking scientist being arrested by the IRS. Yes, for real.

I put a horse to sleep by giving him a lecture, I dressed up a mummy to look nicer with some spaghetti hair, dentures and a fork, I recorded the professor's safe combination through a closed circuit television system, after making him sleepwalk by giving him decaf coffee. Basically, this whole game is insane and it's funny as hell to see the absurdity play out.

Overwatch

Date played: May 26th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is absolutely spectacular. I play as Zarya on Illios, however, it's not one of my good plays... In fact, it's one of my most humiliating plays ever. To make things even worse, my buddy from work, playing Lucio, met the same fate as me. I'll just let the video do the talking.

Gears of War 4

Date played: May 24th
Platform: Xbox One

I played through 5 chapters of Act III, and it was the most interesting part of the game so far... with one exception, which I'll get to soon. Having escaped First Minister Jinn's robots, JD, Kait, Del and Marcus head for a mine near a big fort from the time before the war.

It wasn't long before we encountered some weird shit. A gelatinous, disgusting blob or organic matter stood in the path the team wanted to go through. Marcus cut through it with his chainsaw, only to find a human corpse undergoing some sort of transformation. Soon after that, we found dozens more pods, but they were more mature. When we sliced those open, a new enemy type emerged, a transformed (evolved?) human that became a feral, dangerous beast.

So this is the part I didn't like... Those enemies, nicknamed Juvies, are interesting conceptually, but in battle, they are fucking awful. They don't have a lot of health, but they move very quickly, dodge well and jump around a lot, making them difficult to hit. It's really rare that I enjoy these types of enemies in video games... The worst offender is probably the Flood from the Halo series. In this game, it wouldn't be that bad, except that the Xbox One is getting pretty slow and old, and it shows. These guys become so much harder to hit and track because of the poor framerate... Still, I fought my way through them quite often, either with the Gnasher shotgun or the Lancer assault rifle.

These are Juvies, and they fucking suck

Another new enemy appeared, nicknamed the Snatcher. As Marcus prepared to fire on it, a second Snatcher appeared and grabbed Marcus, storing him in it's large belly, then ran off. JD was devastated, but determined to find his father. Kait was also affected, mainly because she now understood how her mother was taken. It's also obvious that the Snatchers capture humans to put them into those pods.

So the group follows the Snatcher's trail to find and save Marcus. This leads them through the historical site of the fort. This place is fucking huge, and it's filled with lots of big, interesting buildings. The architecture in this series has always been fantastic. It's rare that buildings in video games feel real, but this game nails it.

Soon enough, another new enemy type emerged from a nest in the ground, very similar to the emergence holes in the previous games. They are even destroyed by frag grenades, just like the first games. These guys are called Drones, and they are basically Juvies that evolved a bit longer. They carry guns, they are tough motherfuckers and they are very fun to fight.

There were lots of big battles as we moved throughout the fort, and those are always a lot of fun. Playing on Hardcore means I die a lot, but so far, I haven't hit a point where I can't progress, so I think I'm gonna be ok. Speaking of difficult stuff, another new enemy type caused me lots of trouble. Pouncers are quadruped beasts that are heavily armored and that pounce on unsuspecting humans from a long distance. The problem is that they take a LOT of bullets to kill, which means that each battle is a struggle. I died a lot against these guys, but I'm starting to see that letting them attack my teammates first is a good way to beat them.

At the end of the fort, we found a hole in the ground where the Snatcher went, so of course, we followed. The hole led to some catacombs, crawling with enemies, then later, we reached the mine that Marcus was talking about. The next level was another "special" level, where the team had to defend a position with the help of a fabricator and it's powerful defenses.

The whole scene was set on a giant excavating machine, meant to carry people and ore back to the surface from the mines. However, the machine was heavily damaged by the enemies, which led to some complications as we went down. I died a lot here also, but after a few deaths, I found better strategies to deal with the swarm of enemies.

I stopped playing after we reached the bottom of the mine, but I'm excited to see where the game goes from here. 

Overwatch

Date played: May 23rd
Platform: PS4

There's a new event for Overwatch's first year anniversary! There's a bunch of new, amazing looking skins and lots of new emotes and other cosmetics. Also included in the patch are some hero changes, though there's only really two heroes that are getting major changes.

Orisa's damage has been reduced by 9%, which is a lot, but her shield cooldown went down from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. This means she is now better at defending her team, but is less proficient at killing enemies. Hanzo got a pretty big boost also, because his bow fully charges a lot faster, effectively giving him more damage per second.  There's other minor changes, including some changes to how Genji wall climbs and a slight drop in damage to Soldier 76. Oh yeah and Reinhardt got a minor update too! His Earthshatter now climbs up to 2 meters on top of objects instead of 3.

So anyway, today's play of the night was so fucking easy to pick... I had one of my best runs ever as Soldier 76, defending the first point on Hollywood. Granted, the other team wasn't very smart about their team composition or their movement, but still. I even managed to flank them all and get some kills near spawn and survived. It's kind of a longer video, but I get a 25 kill streak in it... so enjoy!

Bound

Date played: May 22nd
Platform: PS4

I finished Bound!

It turns out, my daughter and I only had a couple of levels left in the game, so we took some time yesterday afternoon to play it together. The last two levels were both wonderful, featuring brighter colors than the rest of the game.

The coolest section was when I had to jump on large violet balls, floating in mid-air. The game does some funny stuff with gravity on these, reminiscent of tricks used in Super Mario Galaxy. However, it wasn't as refined as what was seen in Nintendo's game. I had a bit of trouble doing the jumps I wanted to do, simply because the game is a little rough around the edges. Still, I really enjoyed the change of pace and spectacular visuals.

Bound is one of a kind

Like I've said before though, Bound is more about the experience than the mechanics, so a lot of it is just wandering through beautiful, abstract landscapes that fuck with your perspective. The little bit of story unfolded rather quickly too.

Through a series of "3D paintings" that materialize in front of the player during special scenes, I learned a lot. The pregnant woman on the beach is writing a story through drawings, and the characters in the game's world represent different people in her family. When she was a child, her parents had many fights, which were witnessed by her and her brother. Throughout the game, little bits of their home life is revealed in these paintings. In the later levels, it became clear that the father of the family left them at a young age and was absent from their lives.

It's also clear that the game's heroine, the princess, is really just the pregnant woman, seeing herself in a creative way. When she was young, the woman loved to dance, as evidenced by some of the items I found in the paintings. Her mother was personified by the Queen. Her brother was one of the big creatures roaming around.  Finally, and obviously, her absent father is the creature that the Princess chases throughout the game. It was really fucking sad really.

At the very end of the game, it is revealed that the woman is actually on the beach near her father's house. She somehow tracked him down... I was given the choice to either knock at the door to the father's home, or get into a car and leave.

This was an important moment, and I wanted to see what my daughter would do. At first, she told me I should get in the car, but then when I explained that it was her long lost father in the house, she told me I should knock. I don't really know why, but my daughter's decision made me very emotional... The woman knocked and when the door opened, she handed the sketch book over to her father, then the credits rolled.

Bound was a very cool experience. I think the visual style and the animation is what really kept me interested, but the music was good, the platforming was decent and the story had some interesting elements to it. I loved playing it and it was a great bonding experience for me and my daughter.

Overwatch

Date played: May 22nd
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is one of my rare good runs as Tracer. I kind of forget about her sometimes, but she's one of the most fun heroes to play in Control maps. I kind of just defaulted to Soldier when we need an attack hero, but maybe I should spend more time with Tracer instead.

In this play, I roam around our objective, defending it from attackers. I was a better Tracer than theirs, so I took her out a few times. I also messed with their Hanzo quite a bit, though he's one of the few that managed to kill me. I also mess with Soldier and Mercy. This short video shows me getting a 10 kill streak and helping my team secure the point.

Bound

Date played: May 21st
Platform: PS4

Bound has sort of become the game that I play with my daughter lately, and we played one level together yesterday. This was a fantastic level... In fact, I think it might have been my favorite level yet. As usual, it opens with the lady on the beach, reading her book. She's getting closer and closer to the beach house as it started raining. Then we jumped into the notebook for another fun level.

So somehow, something went bad and broken, infected by the nasty evil cubes that are seen throughout the game. I think it's the fault of the big guy with the blank face that I've been working with and against since the beginning of the game. He blames me for the mess, then runs away.

This level was jaw-dropping

It's all kind of non-sense, but it led to some really interesting platforming. Most of the level played with perspective a lot, reminiscent of an M.C. Escher painting. There was even some great use of doorways and stairs. Nothing in this game is ever difficult at all. There's a few spots that require precise jumping, but the whole thing is really forgiving. It's more like an experience than a challenge, which is pretty refreshing. It wouldn't be worth it in a regular game I think, but Bound's unique art style and clever use of perspective makes it interesting to play, even if it's easy as hell.

The story is revealing itself a little bit, slowly. In the scenes at the end of each level, there's more and more of the story of a family. The only thing I can make out of it so far is that something traumatic happened. I love Bound for it's amazing art style, abstract levels and great animation. 

Overwatch

Date played: May 21st
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is not very flashy, but it still has a very big impact. I played with my brother, who brought his PS4 over for some dual TV play. We had tons of great plays together, but this one might be my favorite of the night. Winston isn't a great killer, and he isn't a great defender, but he's the best hero to harass the enemy team with.

In this play, I roam around the first choke point, messing with Symmetra and Mei. I run back for health packs quite a bit, then I see an opportunity to take down Mei. I jump her and with McCree's help, we kill her. I then take out Mercy and Sombra, protect the point from Junkrat and pop my Primal Rage Ultimate right as I was about to die. I push the enemy Roadhog into a corner, stopping him and anyone else from reaching the point. As I died, I heard the announcer pronounce the first point captured, and I knew I had done my job well. 

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Date played: May 18th and 19th
Platform: Switch

I've been playing lots of Mario Kart on and off here and there, playing an online race or two when time permits. Overall, I'm still doing pretty good, but the victories are getting rarer as I move up in rank. The racers are more tenacious, have better driving lines and are more accurate with their items. Still, I'm a good racer and I keep up with most people, usually fighting for the first 4 or 5 positions.

I race underwater as Mario

Yeah, there are times where I fall behind, or get a string of bad luck, I mean, this IS Mario Kart after all, but overall, I'm happy with how I'm racing. I also experimented with a few more characters and found that if I just fiddle with the wheels and gliders, I can find something that I like with most characters. The very light characters are still not my favorite, but some of the mediums have been good for me. I particularly like regular Mario, simply because he's got some fantastic animations and sounds. 

Overwatch

Date played: May 18th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is kind of weak, but I was pretty weak overall last night, so that's not too surprising. This play isn't amazing of flashy, but it was just enough for us to win the match at the first point.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered

Date played: May 16th
Platform: PS4

I needed to play a slow ass game last night after a few hours of intense combat in Gears of War 4, so I spent some time with Day of the Tentacle Remastered. I did a lot of different things, but not too many that led to any results. One thing that I didn't quite understand the last time I played is that the game takes place in the same location for all three characters, but in different time periods. The building has almost the exact same layout in all time periods... This made it a lot easier to navigate and find my bearings. Laverne is still stuck in a tree

As Hoagie, I explored a little bit more and ended up having a conversation with George Washington. I learned that the man has a wooden denture and that he loves to chop down cherry trees. Now, he wouldn't go out and show me how good he is at chopping trees, because the only trees he chops are cherry trees, but the only trees in the area are Kumquat, which have yellow fruit. So obviously, I took some red paint and painted the kumquat fruit red. This was enough to fool the founding father and he chopped the tree down!

Cut to Laverne, stuck in a tree in the future. The tree disappears due to the chopping done by Washington and Laverne falls down on her ass, only to be immediately captured by a tentacle guard. It's obvious that in the future, the world has been taken over by the tentacles and that humans have been reduced to circus animals at best.

Laverne gets electrocuted trying to escape from her jail cell

I spoke with my cellmates a little bit, an old man and a couple that are playing cards. They weren't much help, so I had Laverne call out to the guard. One option has her complaining about stomach pains, the other about having to pee. This leads to opportunities to explore more than just a jail cell and to a lot of useful information. It became apparent that if I was going to make any progress in the future, I would need a tentacle costume! I found a pattern that details how to draw a tentacle guy, then sent it to Hoagie through the time travelling toilet.

Hoagie then gave it to a seamstress, who accidentally turned it into the nation's flag, replacing the iconic stars and stripes. Back in the future, Laverne simply had to tear off a flag from a pole and put it on like a shirt, and she now looked like a tentacle!

I did a lot more stuff, but this is what stands out the most. The situations presented in this game are so fucking ridiculous that I can't help but laugh out loud once in a while. I honestly wish there were more games with funny, silly writing like this. I mean, it's not stupid the same way that something like a children's TV show. It's stupid in a Leslie Nielsen kinda way, which is a very rare breed of comedy these days. 

Gears of War 4

Date played: May 16th
Platform: Xbox One

I felt like shooting shit last night, so I booted up Gears of War 4 and played through a good chunk of the game. We continued the mission, which was to extract a special device called a fabricator from a robot-infested facility. Oscar is still waiting outside, and Del is operating the elevator. JD and Kait go down a few levels with the elevator, but Del has trouble operating it.

This led to a few battles on the large elevator as Del scrambled to get us moving again.We got the fabricator and carried it back to the elevator, then of course, there was more fighting. The longer range weapons are pretty difficult to use, partly because of the game's iffy performance. I mean, the game looks pretty damn good and it runs well enough to play, but it's clear that the Xbox One is really pushing it's limits with this game. After playing Horizon on a PS4 Pro, the lackluster performance is even more evident...

Anyway, we fought our way way out of the facility with the fabricator in hand. Unfortunately, we had a special visitor waiting for us in. First Minister Jinn, the lady who gave the speech during the opening moments of the game, shows up. She isn't in person though, instead, she uses her robots as proxies, projecting a hologram of her face on the robot's head. Mysteriously, she accused us of "stealing her people", which are the remnants of the COG.

That's when things got super weird. Out of nowhere, a transport train rammed straight into Jinn, destroying her robot proxy. Then the cart stopped and opened it's doors for us, displaying the words "Get in" on it's monitor. We took the fabricator and got into the little train, puzzled by it's unexplained presence.

The next mission was more straight-forward. We just had to carry the fabricator through the facility, fighting enemies along the way. There were some new bad guys here, bigger and more dangerous robots. Some of them carry very large, heavy weapons, like miniguns. Others carry the Overkill shotgun, which is a savage weapon at close range. Finally, I encountered some snipers. They are pretty damn accurate and their shots hit really hard, but they don't have much health. Still, just getting into position to have a decent shot at them is pretty tough.

We managed to get the fabricator back to the village. The village chief, also Kait's mother, is a woman named Rayna. She's a real fighter and takes no bullshit. She doesn't exactly welcome our return and she blames us for Jinn's attacks on the village. There isn't much time to talk though as the COG forces are rapidly approaching the village.

This mission was a lot different than the others. I had to fortify the village's defenses then hold any attackers at bay. Using the fabricator, I was able to build some defenses, including some automatic turrets and some barriers to slow down enemies. There were about 3 waves of enemies, and I was able to rebuild defenses between waves, so that was fun. I even had to fight a new, very dangerous enemy type, the Kestrel.

Kestrel are kind of like a small helicopter or VTOL and are protected by a shield. The shield can be shot down rather quickly, then the vehicle can be shot. The shield regenerates also, so it's important to do as much damage as possible while it recharges. They are challenging, but lots of fun to fight. I won that battle without too much trouble, but it was a long mission.

There were a lot of cut-scenes after the fight. At one point, we brought the fabricator inside a building, but Rayna locked us inside to keep us safe. That's because a new type of enemy made it's appearance. There are mysterious, dark creatures that roam around the buildings. They are not fully revealed yet, but they seem to be savage beasts that want to attack anything that moves. In fact, JD, Kait and Del had to watch in horror as both Oscar and Rayna are captured by the monsters. It's not clear if they were eaten, killed or just transported somewhere else...

After a long time, the crew figures out a way to escape the building, but the battle has been over for a while. During the battle, Rayna managed to cut off one of the monster's hands, which is covered in small yellow crystals. When JD picks it up, he implies that only one person will know how to help. That person is none other than Marcus Fenix, which, it turns out, is JD's father!

Marcus lives in a derelict mansion, so the team heads there and find the old man in a small building. He's angry at first, since there's clearly some sort of long standing disagreement between him and JD, but he changes his behaviour as soon as he sees the monster's hand. But there wasn't much time for conversation as the COG followed the team to the mansion and attacks the old property.

This fight was really just a one on one against a Kestrel, but this time it's armed with rockets in addition to it's regular guns. The rockets are deadly and will kill JD in one or two hits at most, so it's pretty challenging. Still, the environment was easy hide in and I took it down quickly.

With no means of transportation available at the mansion, the team hunkers down and walks towards the estate's barn, where Marcus has a special little something hidden. There was a wind flare happening too... so we had to take cover through the forest. I even fought a few robots during the wind flare, which looked absolutely stunning visually. The robots stumble in the wind and their remains fly in the air after being destroyed. It was really spectacular.

The motorcycle level was really fun!

At the barn, we were quickly surrounded by Jinn's forces, but Marcus still had his little surprise. This turned out to be a pair of motorcycles known as Mules, which the team uses to escape the estate. I spent the entirety of the next mission riding that sweet bike, avoiding obstacles and firing on random robots at high speeds. This is another mission that just looks so cool. At the end of the mission, I even had to fight a god damned bomber plane while riding the bike! I had to shoot out it's engines, weapons and secondary engines. I was then able to attack the engine's core to eventually destroy the giant aircraft. I loved it. I stopped playing as I reached Chapter 3, but I'm excited to see what happens next. 

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Date played: May 15th
Platform: Switch

I played a few online races last night and for the first time, I was put into a lobby with people that had a higher skill rating than me, and it was really fucking obvious! Even the worst of racers in this group was powersliding efficiently and doing tricks on jumps. It was completely hectic and felt like anyone could win.

One of the 3 Rainbow Roads in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

I did pretty well, considering I was the lowest ranked player in the lobby. I had a few bad races, placing 10th or 11th, but I had a few good ones too. I had one victory against these guys, and it felt like I worked really hard for it, which made it that much more satisfying. Eventually, some players left and new players joined, lowering the overall skill in the lobby, and I began winning more.

Also, I feel like I'm doing a little bit better when I'm using my new Pro Controller, as the joystick is a bit more "solid" and the triggers are easier to press. I might need to look into a kart setup that has a bit more acceleration, but we'll see.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Date played: May 14th
Platform: Switch

Man, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a great game... Since buying the game, I find myself picking up my Switch way more often than before, even when I wasn't even planning on playing. Yesterday, I ended up playing it a few times, for pretty short periods each time.

I really spend all my time in the online race mode. Shit, I haven't even tried the brand new battle mode! I've been performing really well with Donkey Kong...  I also messed around with Lakitu in a heavy car, which worked really well but was a bit too light for my tastes.

Lakitu is a cutie!

I'm kind of surprised at how well I'm doing now actually. I think this will change with time as my ranking goes up, but right now, there's usually only 1 or 2 racers that pose a real threat in most lobbies. I'm usually in the top 3, but I've been winning more than usual.

I do best on tracks that allow for long drifts and don't have too many extreme corners, since my car is pretty fast, but it's also real heavy, so a succession of tight corners is hard to handle. I did end up in a challenging lobby for a few races. I'd say that about half the players in the lobby had a real chance at victory. They had good racing lines and were fast, which is a little bit unusual, at least from what I've played so far. I'm not complaining though because these were the most exciting races of the day, even if I struggled to break into the top 3. Hell, I felt good about a 6th place in that lobby! 

Jack Box Party Pack 3

Date played: May 13th
Platform: PS4

I watched the Sens win their first game against the Penguins in the NHL conference final with my brother and some friends last night. After the game, the 6 of us played Jack Box Party Pack 3 for a while. Trivia Murder Party was a good game to start with. I led the match the whole game with solid trivia answers, but I was beaten by a hair in the last round.

Tee K.O. was great too, with a few fantastic shirts produced by our group. However, the shirts we made last time I played were definitely funnier. Quiplash 2 is one of my favorite games, since we get to flex our creative writing muscles, but it's not for everyone. For example, my sister in law hated it because she isn't great at writing quickly. Still, some of the funniest shit comes out of this game.

The biggest hit of the night was Fakin' It. Finding the faker is a lot harder than it sounds, but the third round questions are great at identifying him. For example, we had a question that said "Raise your hand if you have brown eyes", which is pretty damn hard to fake. Bottom line, Jack Box Party Pack 3 feels like the future of social board games. It's a great way to play, and playing on our phones just makes it even easier.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Date played: May 12th
Platform: Switch

I didn't have much time to play games last night, but I still managed to do a bit of stuff in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I spent some time in the Time Trial mode to try out a few kart combinations to be as comfortable as possible in the online mode. I settled on Donkey Kong, with the out of place Mercedes W25 Silver Arrow, a relatively heavy vehicle with high speed and acceleration. I am using Button wheels and one of the lighter gliders. This gives me a lot of speed and acceleration as well as really good handling.

My three online victories from last night

The results spoke for themselves once I hopped online. Out of 4 races in full 12 player lobbies, I won 3 and placed 3rd once. I'm sure I've said this before, but even with all the random items and bias against the top racers, the bottom line is that skill is more important than anything in Mario Kart. Sure, there's the occasional race where items will destroy you, taking a player from 1st place to 12th in a few seconds, but most of the time, a solid racing line and smart driving will yield good results. 

Overwatch

Date played: May 11th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is a hectic attack on Lijiang Tower's Control Center map as Soldier 76. The enemy team has a massive force on the point, but I pick at them from a distance, then when I see an opportunity, I use my Ultimate for a solid triple kill. I then take out a Junkrat with my rockets, heal through a McCree's attacks, then get nano-boosted by Ana. This allowed me to destroy the McCree, then quickly kill a nearby Hanzo. I was taken out by a wild Rip-Tire after this, but we won the match. 

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Date played: May 10th
Platform: Switch

I messed around some more with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe last night. I wanted to try out the new characters a little bit, so I completed a few single player GP's at 150cc. I played with Bowser Jr., Inkling Girl, King Boo and Dry Bones.

I'm usually not a fan of lighter characters, but Inkling Girl wasn't too bad. She seems to be about mid weight, similar to Mario and Luigi, but the reason I liked her is because of her amazing animations. As in Splatoon, Inkling Girl is a weird ass hybrid between a human and a squid. During tricks, she'll sometimes change shapes and show her cephalopodic form, which just looks really cool.

King Boo is one of the new characters

I had a good time with Dry Bones and Bowser Jr. also, but had to give them fast and heavy karts to get them to feel right. King Boo is definitely more my style, as he's even heavier than Donkey Kong. However, being a white ghost, he's kind of boring during races and doesn't show a lot of great animation like the others did. Still, I might use him once in a while.

I played online a few times too, but not too much. I did relatively well, though I did have one awful race where I placed 11th... I made the podium a few times, but mostly placed between 4th and 6th. I still haven't found the right kart and part combo, but I'm trying out different things, so we'll see.

Overwatch

Date played: May 10th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the game is an aggressive defensive play as Symmetra, defending the last point on Dorado. We actually held the last point for over 8 minutes, since we played like shit for the first few checkpoints. Still, we managed to win anyway, and I think I had a good deal to do with that.

Most of our team had just died to a D.Va self-destruct and their Reinhardt was on point. Knowing I didn't stand a chance, I still moved to the payload and started attacking the Reinhardt, but he used his Ultimate and killed me rather quickly. I wasn't expecting our Mercy to revive me though, which led to a barbaric sequence as I melted down about 4 enemies with my primary weapon. That shit feels good man.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Date played: May 9th
Platform: Switch

A quick search on this blog will show that I've played a LOT of Mario Kart 8 when it first came out on Wii U. In fact, I've played a lot of Mario Kart in my life overall. I've told this story before, but Super Mario Kart is one of the games that sparked my love for both racing games and multiplayer games, when I played it against my brother in our basement during rainy days and cold winter days.

It's pretty rare that I buy a game twice, but this situation is a bit different. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a rerelease of the the Wii U original, which came out in 2014. It includes all of the base game plus DLC, as well as a few new characters and an apparently much improved battle mode. They've also added the ability to carry two items at once and a couple of new items. I've only messed around with the game a little bit, playing one single player GP and a few online races.

Mario Kart is back!

So far, this is the Mario Kart 8 I know and love, but now it's portable on Switch. It runs beautifully and looks stunning on the machine's great screen. The controls are perfect and everything is super polished. I now have to unlock all the parts for karts and stuff, so that's been fun. It also means I don't have my favorite kart combo yet, but I still only used Donkey Kong.

Online, I played rather well, placing on the podium a few times, but I didn't manage a victory. My worst performance was 6th out of 12, so not too bad. Having two items at once is really cool and makes for more action during a race.

Fast RMX

Date played: May 9th
Platform: Switch

Well, as I spent my time on a boring call at work today, I managed to complete a few Fast RMX championships. The last few cups were really cool, where many of the tracks are trickier, and most importantly, some of them are much longer tracks.

I struggled a few times, but eventually I placed at least 2nd in the last 3 cups. My favorite of the later tracks is set in a desert where there's a lot of areas that are more open than usual. It kind of reminded me of Wipeout Fusion, the ill-fated PS2 racer.

This desert track is fucking great!

Placing on the podium for all cups at the lowest speed was hard... Now I've got even harder events ahead of me thanks to the second speed class, Supersonic. I unlocked a new ship that has maximum acceleration and high boost, along with low weight. Sure, it's got pretty low top speed, but this thing has been a real success for me so far. Rochdale is now my favorite ship! I completed one cup at Supersonic speeds and placed 1st, but it was the easiest cup, so we'll see if I can handle the others!

Puyo Puyo Tetris demo

Date played: May 9th
Platform: Switch

I tried another Switch demo today, this time for Puyo Puyo Tetris. In this weird mashup game, the two iconic puzzle games are combined to make for some really cool multiplayer action. Unfortunately, I had to try it alone, but I still enjoyed what I played.

I lose to the green guy!

There's nothing ground-breaking here, it's still just Tetris and Puyo Puyo, but it's packaged really nicely. The mode I tried swaps between the two games at set intervals. The objective is to beat the CPU or Human opponents by making lines and blocks appear on their screen after clearing some of yours. It's a known quantity, but the beautiful art and great interface make it a pleasure to play.
I would love to play more of this, but it seems like it would really be enjoyable only in local multiplayer. I might pick it up when it's cheaper or something I guess.

Blaster Master Zero demo

Date played: May 9th
Platform: Switch

Blaster Master Zero is an old school 2D action game featuring lots of platforming and combat. The art style is very good and sets the tone for the game quite well. The music is fantastic too, making every moment more enjoyable than it should have been.

The story is completely ridiculous. Something about a frog named Fred I think. It really doesn't matter though, as the game is all about it's gameplay mechanics. Most of the game is played from a 2D, side-scrolling perspective where you control a versatile space vehicle. This thing can jump, go underwater and most importantly, it can shoot stuff and kill it.

This boss was the most fun I've had in the demo

The other portion of the game is played from a 2D, top-down perspective as the hero exits the vehicle and fights on foot in areas that are not accessible with the car.

Both the vehicle and the hero have lots of different weapons that are useful in different situations. The game is hard, but not that crazy, at least from the two levels in the demo. There were even a few boss fights, but the only one that stood out was the last one in the second level. I had to use my new hover jumpjets to navigate around it's attacks, then target one small area of it's body to damage it. I like Blaster Master Zero quite a bit, but probably not enough to play it some more...

Overwatch

Date played: May 8th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is my best use of Soldier's Ultimate that I can remember. On the Oasis map with the launch pad, I spotted the bulk of the enemy force standing just below the jump pad, but above the point. Just before reaching the pad, the enemy Mercy revived a bunch of people... I jumped into the pad, activated my Tactical Visor Ultimate and shot in the general direction of the Mercy. Combined with our Hanzo's Ultimate, I ended up with a quadruple kill and play of the game!

Bound

Date played: May 8th
Platform: PS4

Today was a weird day. Due to massive flooding in my town, most government buildings are shut down, including schools. I decided to take this opportunity to spend some quality time with my daughter, including a quick 30 minutes of Bound.

These sequences are always great

I played through one level, and it wasn't anything that great honestly. The platforming was kind of standard and a little boring compared to what I had seen previously in the game. My favorite gameplay moment was an eerie walk through a cylindrical structure as the perspective twisted around with my dancer. There was also a pretty cool backstory in the level where two giant creatures fight each other. I think one of them was on my side, and the other is a villain.

At the end of the level, there was another carpet sliding sequence, which are really easy, but also a lot of fun and great to look at. My daughter had a smile on her face during the whole sequence. 

Overwatch

Date played: May 7th
Platform: PS4

Today's play of the night is a solid defensive play as Symmetra on the first point of Hollywood. A pesky Tracer was my biggest worry, but I got her pretty good. Sorry for the bad video quality!

Jack Box Party Pack 3

Date played: May 6th
Platform: PS4

I spent some time with my brother, his wife, and 3 other people last night. We ended up spending most of it playing Jack Box Party Pack 3, which is about as close to a physical board game as I've seen a video game. The concept is really cool. The host opens up a match on the PS4, then people join the game with their cell phones by going to a website and typing in a code. Players choose or write their answers on their phone, and the results are compiled on the TV. It's a great concept and it works flawlessly.

The games themselves are fantastic. For example, in Trivia Murder Party, trivia questions are asked and everyone answers. When someone gets the wrong answer, they play a mini-game to see if they live or die. For example, one of the mini-games was a speedy math contest. At the end, the dead players compete against the living, answering questions until someone wins.

My t-shirt got second place!

Tee K.O. is a very unique game where players must draw something funny on their smart phone, using a rudimentary paint application. They must then write funny slogans. At the end, the images and slogans are randomly combined to create t-shirts. People then vote on the best t-shirt. This one was really funny... The winner was a badly drawn skull-car with the slogan "Life is Life".

Quiplash was great too. The game presents a topic, and people must write funny things as their answer. For example, make a funny name for a movie starring an Otter. "Get Otter Here!" was the winner on that one!

My favorite of the games was Fakin' It. In this game, a question is presented to all players on their phones, except for one person, who is the faker. The objective is to find out who the faker is. An example question could be "Raise your hand if you have buttons on your shirt", or "Make the face you would have at a Justin Bieber concert". Based on the reaction of all players, people then vote to find out who the faker is. It's really great, and it forces people to look at each other and study their reactions. I formed a good team with one of my brothers because we would kind of use each other as a baseline for the questions. It worked, but it was also easy for both of us to know when the other was the faker because of it.

Jack Box Party Pack 3 is a lot of easy, stupid fun. I think I just might need to buy it for my next group activity. When a few players dropped out, we swapped out Jack Box for a few rounds of 2V2, local multiplayer Rocket League, and it was a blast, as usual. 

Gears of War 4

Date played: May 3rd
Platform: Xbox One

Having recently completed Horizon, I wanted to start a new game, and Gears of War 4 was staring at me on my shelf, so I booted it up and played the first few missions. I played the first 3 Gears games when they first came out, skipping only the coldly received Gears of War Judgement. The combat has always been the main appeal of Gears, in fact, it's pretty much the only thing that matters in this series. I chose to play on Hard, since it's "The way it's meant to be played" according to the developers. It's also how I played all other games in the series, so I hope I still have the chops to handle it!

The game opens in a kind of weird way... Set years after the events of Gears of War 3, a woman is giving a speech in front of a large crowd. As she explains some of the events prior to Emergence Day, the game cuts to the first mission, set in that era.

I played a faceless soldier and had to shoot my way through some soldiers, then blow up a communications tower. This first mission really didn't give a great first impression... All the characters that spoke were roughneck soldiers with giant faces and an unhealthy amount of anger... The environment was pretty boring looking, full of industrial structures. The enemies were as boring as could be, they are just armored soldiers.

There were a few cool sections where I had to take cover from turrets, showcasing the importance of flanking in the game. Basically, this mission sucked. It was a bit of a tutorial too, so I understand why it's there, it just felt uninspired. At least the explosion of the comm tower looked cool...

The lady continues her speech, and speaks of Marcus Fenix and his friends who eventually destroyed the Locust, during Gears of War 3. The game then cuts to a squad of soldiers fighting for their lives on Emergence day. The visuals are a lot more interesting here, with lots of great architecture and lots of cool looking creatures.

In fact, the enemies were probably the coolest thing about the game so far. I mean, even the simplest of enemy soldiers is a real challenge and a pain in the ass to kill, so when bigger monsters are introduced, it gets difficult and frenetic in an instant. When a Corpser showed up as a part of the tutorial, I knew this game wasn't fucking around. Corpsers are giant spider-like creatures that are insanely powerful. I was given access to the game's famous Hammer of Dawn weapon, a laser targeting system that shoots down laser beams from a satellite in space.

After killing the Corpser with the Hammer of Dawn, I thought I was safe, but it was just the beginning. The next segment was really difficult for me... Still equipped with the Hammer of Dawn, I had to hold a position, defending it against a swarm of enemy attackers. In addition to the normal Locust soldiers, there were half a dozen Boomers in there. These big guys take a lot of bullets to kill, but even worse, they have grenade launchers that hit real fucking hard, sometimes even killing instantly. At the end of the sequence, some large flying creatures attacked. These guys go down relatively fast with the Hammer of Dawn, but they shoot a powerful explosive that kills instantly.

I died during this sequence. I died a lot. Probably at least 5 or 6 times... In the end, I was able to succeed by just using cover a little better and being more aggressive with my weapons to avoid getting overwhelmed.

The final sequence in the prologue was a giant fucking battle where hundreds of Locust swarm a facility. They brought lots of firepower, including a pair of Brumaks, which are probably the most terrifying creatures of the Locust. These giant bipedal monsters are armed to the teeth and are very durable. I shot at the enemies with a turret to the best of my ability, but it was a losing battle. Just as I was about to be overwhelmed for good, the guys from the Gears 3 story deploy the neutron bomb that ended the war, saving the few remaining COG soldiers.

That's when the game finally starts for good, title screen and all. The story and the motivations of the characters are really unclear, but I don't really care, I'm here to shoot stuff! The main character, JD, is pretty generic, but it's super weird because he's voiced by Nolan North, who also plays Nathan Drake from Uncharted. While he voices the character differently, it's still really close and kind of odd.

There's a young woman named Kait, who is portrayed as a bit of a rebel. There's another guy, Del, who seems to be either our medic, or like a tech guy. Then there's the old man, Oscar, who has clearly seen a lot of shit. He's the most experienced of the crew, loves to drink and doesn't tolerate bullshit. He's also Kait's uncle. The characters aren't too bad, but they aren't great either. They are very predictable and cliché, but it's not as bad as the characters from the first 3 games.

It looks like their job is to get into a large facility and get some object. Just as they are about to enter the large structure, a solar wind storm begins. This was an moment since the wind is very powerful and would often send debris from the environment flying all around the place. It also looked really cool, with great lighting and solid sound effects. After the storm passes, the crew enters the facility and is immediately confronted by an army of humanoid robots.

These guys are a lot of fun to fight. They go down relatively quickly, but they come in large numbers. They also have little rolling EMP bombs that roam on their own. I shot my way through dozens of these bad guys using a variety of weapons. I've come to really like the little submachine guns that the robots use. We reached the building where we'll find the object, but I stopped playing as the second chapter of the first act began.

So far, Gears of War 4 is pretty cool, but it's not amazing. The combat, enemies and level design is top notch, but the characters and story haven't impressed me much so far. I'll stick with it because I really like the battles, but so far, I'm not invested in the story.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered

Date played: May 1st
Platform: PS4

Having recently completed Horizon Zero Dawn, I figured I would play something different, something that isn't an open world game. So I turned on my Xbox One with the intention of finally trying Gears of War 4. Since I almost never play this machines, I had a massive 3.7 GB software update. So I let that run for a while. Then when that was done, I had to update the controller's firmware... Weird, yes, but ok sure, it's not that long. Then the fucking game had to be installed, which takes a while, then download it's own update, sitting at a staggering 37 GB. I let it run and decided to try something else.

I settled on Day of the Tentacle Remastered. While I'm not a huge fan of these old adventure game mechanics, I love the writing, and it's why I come to these games. It was the same with stuff like Monkey Island, Full Throttle or even Grim Fandango. I had never played Day of the Tentacle though, so I was pleasantly surprised by the brilliant writing.

The story is fucking stupid, yet pretty funny. Some tentacles roam around and a purple one drinks from a contaminated water supply. This somehow makes him want to take over the world. The game features three heroes, an old nerdy scientist, a young metal-head guy and a frazzled teenage girl. They get teleported to different eras and areas when using a special device.

I can switch characters at any time to progress their portion of the story. There's also going to be a way to transfer items between them, which I'm sure will play a big role in the puzzles.

Honestly though, what keeps me interested is the flurry of funny jokes, puns and dumb things that happen. It's ridiculous in the same vein as Airplane! or even Monty Python. I solved a bunch of little puzzles, each more outrageous than the next. For example, I stuck a squirrel into an ice cooler to make him more resistant to manual labor (a hamster wheel that powers a big machine). But now the little fucker is angry and won't let me touch him! I don't know if I'll stick with this game, but the writing is good enough that I want to see more of it.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Date played: April 30th
Platform: PS4

I finished Horizon Zero Dawn!

What an incredible experience... I played quite a bit yesterday, starting with a visit to the ruins of GAIA Prime, at the top of the Bitter Climb. This is an area I had recently cleared of enemies to reach a Vantage point, so thankfully, all I had to do was climb. The entire mission was really just a bunch of story, as Aloy attempts to find the Master Override that will be required to destroy HADES.

I learned a lot from the facility since it was the living quarters of Zero Dawn staff, right up to the end. It's a heart-breaking story really, but also a story of hope and strength. Basically, the Zero Dawn staff ran out of time and decided to stay and work instead of leaving for the secure facility that would let them live out their lives in peace. All of the senior staff agreed to stay, with one last ditch effort to save humanity. When the robotic invasion was finally reaching it's climax, the door to the facility broke and wouldn't close properly. As the heads of each system argued about who should go out and fix the door, never to return, Elizabet went out herself and shut the door, only to be left to die outside. At least she saved the group...

It wasn't for very long though. The Faro Industries leader, Ted Faro, had second thoughts about the Apollo system, which holds all of human knowledge, history and culture. In the hopes that the new world born out of Zero Dawn would avoid the mistakes of the old world, Ted decided to shut down the Apollo system! It was a brazen and destructive act, but it wasn't even the worst of it. The fucking guy also decided to kill all the remaining system heads... I don't really understand his reasoning, but it's what caused so many problems with GAIA and her systems. Aloy got the Master Override from a terminal and attached it to her lance.

During the mission, I gathered the last of the fuel cells required to unlock the ancient armor. I went back to the ruins where Aloy first found her Focus and solved a simple puzzle to get the powerful armor. This thing is absolutely ridiculous... It generates a sort of force field that prevents damage, then recharges. The trick is that it has quite a few charges before being depleted, and it charges up really quickly, so it's really overpowered. Turns out, that's not such a bad thing though because the last mission was full of difficult combat encounters.

During the previous mission, Sylens told Aloy a ton about himself and his journey towards knowledge. When GAIA was destroyed, he was the first to investigate the area and soon found Hades. The machine offered to exchange knowledge for information. And so, Sylens became Hades' guide to the new world. Hades would ask all about the world, it's residents, it's machines, etc. In exchange, it would give Sylens tons of information on physics and other important topics.

Eventually, it became clear that Hades was very focused on the Spire, the odd looking construct that towers over the land. Hades was starting to formulate a plan to take over and burn the world to ashes once again. Together with Sylens, they built the Eclipse. Sylens wasn't a really bad guy or anything, he was just really hungry for knowledge, but that led to much violence. Eventually, Sylens found out Hades' plan, but the machine was smart and sent out an order to the Eclipse to kill Sylens as soon as possible. Sylens spent the rest of his life in hiding, using his Focus and workshops to survive and gather information. When he saw that Hades was interested in Aloy, he started getting involved...

From all this and the information we found in the facility, we deduced that Hades and his army of Eclipse soldiers and machines were on the verge of attacking the Spire and Meridian. Aloy inspected the defensive sites and got some rest. Al of her friends were there to help, including Varl, Sona, Erend and even Petra, the Oseram forger.

The first part of the final battle had me fighting some Eclipse soldiers, which I defeated rather easily. The next part was a lot cooler and definitely more fun as I used some of Petra's insane cannons to defend against a swarm of machines, including about 4 Deathbringers, a flock of Longlegs, some Ravagers and even a few Fire Bellowbacks. The Deathbringers were the real problem as they would often destroy my cover and would deal heavy damage, but the canons are very powerful and I took them all down without too much trouble. At the end though, a Stormbird showed up and kind of fucked up my defenses. I still managed to take it down and survive, but it was quite a scramble.

Unfortunately, Hades has a very well prepared attack and the defensive ridge fell to the machines. Aloy was buried under some rubble in the process and was thought to be dead by her friends. When she woke, Aloy headed straight for the Spire, as Hades had already managed to activate it. The destruction of the world was underway...

When I reached the Spire, all my friends were there again, fighting for humanity, fighting for Earth. Needless to say, they were quite happy to see Aloy rejoin their ranks. That's when the final battle started. It was just the one Deathbringer, but it was a much stronger Deathbringer than any other. It had a shit ton of health, powerful weapons and was periodically joined by Ravagers and other machines.

I fought this battle for a long time, and I actually died twice. It's funny though, I didn't die from damage, seeing as my ancient armor is completely stupid powerful. No, I died from being knocked around and fell off a cliff. Twice...

The final battle

Anyway, I did manage to beat the fucker with lots of dodging, a variety of failed attacks until finally I settled on fire arrows to make it overheat. I was then able to damage it's exposed, overheating parts with my Sharpshooter bow. I took my lance and stuck it deep inside the Hades core, destroying it for good!

Aloy saved the world! There was a lot of exposition here, with many characters making cameo appearances. Everyone was so happy, and there was a real sense of accomplishment and it felt like a great ending. There's a great bit of dialogue in there at one point that says that hope is important, and that individual people CAN make a huge difference in the world. To make the world a better place. It really resonated with me and made me feel happy...

However, Sylens hadn't said his last word... Having left the story after the events at the facility, before the final battle, Sylens is shown. He has a special little container and manages to draw out the last remaining figments of Hades from it's impaled carcass! With a bit of a smirk in his voice, he tells Hades that he's in charge now, and that they'll do great things together. Horizon 2 confirmed?

Horizon Zero Dawn is an absolute masterpiece that will be forever remembered as a classic. Not only is it a marvel of technological achievement, it's also a piece of art, a fun playground to explore, a intriguing and interesting story and a great place to have some fun battles against robot animals. It's also worth noting that Aloy is one of the best video game characters ever, at least in my mind. She's believable, which is a hard thing to do in games. She also has very strong, positive values, a fun attitude, a lot of heart and she's got one hell of a voice actor. It's also very refreshing to have a woman as the main character, and we don't even see a boob crack the whole game. Aloy is one of the few video game heroines that isn't treated as a piece of eye candy for horny perverts...