The Witness is good then? It's on my wishlist, but I wasn't sure I wanted to pay $40 on what looked like a puzzle game where you have to connect dots.

Happy New-born by the way. I have two kids myself, but they're not newborns anymore! My bigger problem now is not finding time to play, but finding time to SHARE the games with the kids.

Gaming is currently taking a bit of a back seat on account of the newborn who demands attention at a moment's notice. While I have plenty of games that lend themselves well to handling interruptions, none of the ones I'm currently interested in playing are of that variety.

Entirely unrelated, my Netflix and Plex queues are rapidly shrinking.

Well I've put about 65 hours into BotW so far and it definitely lives up to its name. Since this game seems to be built to encourage doing crazy off the wall things, that's exactly what I've been doing. Normally I like to roleplay the character in video games, which usually means not doing things like throwing rocks at NPCs, setting random things on fire, charging headfirst into much stronger enemies, or refusing to wear clothes just to see what would happen, but I figure Link's got amnesia so what the hell? He also apparently has no sense of self-preservation this time around. Anytime an idea pops in my head that is immediately countered by my video game logic, "don't do that, you'll die" or "don't do that, you'll get stuck," I make a concentrated effort to override that logic and do it anyway.

In short, I'm having a blast, but I'm not taking the story as seriously as I normally would I guess.

Excellent, thank you very much for the information.

Thanks for the informative reply, Aichon, much appreciated. I think I will wait on the DLC then add it as soon as I beat it. Thanks!

I just read a claim that it does play Reset in the final credits, but only if you play it in Japanese. That would make sense perhaps considering the licensing issues.

I see you are playing Breath of the Wild. I will be getting it soon and was wondering, would it be best to start the game with the DLC or to wait until after I've beaten it? I specifically want to experience the game balance as intended before adding any potential game change items the DLC may add.

Hi Aichon, sadly that does not seem to be the case. From what I understand this version retains the same credits as the PS3 remaster. I can't say for sure, however, as I've not seen it myself. I completely understand wanting simply a remastered version of the original credits. I could not overstress how emotional they were to me upon finishing the PS2 version.

What it seems this does offer is 4K resolution and the restoration of the loading screen minigames. Otherwise, I believe it is essentially identical to the previous HD release.

I think the Last Guardian was good. It felt like a good successor to Ico, and if I could only go back and play one of those two games, it would be TLG. SOTC is still from favourite from that studio though.

I don't think TLG is a great game though, and there are things that they should have had perfected given the long development time. Nothing was bad, but when there are camera issues or interaction spaces that were being too finicky, it had me thinking they could have polished those things up a little more. Plus it can get confusing when you try something a couple times and it doesn't work, so you think "maybe I should try something else" and waste time until you go back and try the first thing again, but this time it works.

Overall I did find the puzzles better than the ones in Ico, although I found they did occasionally fall back too much on the idea that playing hide-n-seek with a ladder or a lever counts as a puzzle (as I don't think it does).

In the end, I enjoyed it, and I'm happy I played it, but I didn't love it and I don't see myself going to back to play it again soon.

(Part 2 of 2)

Speaking of narrative things, ME1 had a pretty bare bones backstory, even neglecting to give the setting a name. This time, however, they've really filled in the gaps. Unfortunately, all the gap filling is restricted to the tie-in comic, which I didn't read. All the characters kept throwing around all these names and places, and referencing all these past events that I had no knowledge of. At one point I got sick of being in the dark, paused the game and dove into the fanwiki to see what they were talking about. There's some good stuff in there. Details about the history of the city, even the country its located in, and its relationship with neighboring countries, including several wars that eventually led to the totalitarian regime currently in place. Seems like a huge missed opportunity that these things weren't elaborated on in game, aside from being mentioned offhand.

All in all, I liked it just as much as the original. Some things ME1 did better, some things Catalyst did better. I think there's potential here for a few more games set in this universe.

I feel the same way you do about The Last Guardian. But none of the flaws bothered me in the slightest because I was expecting them. What I wasn't expecting, was the ending. I'd spent so long convincing myself that there was only one possible way this game could end, I was kinda blindsided. I'm gonna be honest, though. It didn't move me the way ICO and SotC did. Those games will always be in my top 10, but I can't say I'll be adding TLG to that list. I can't quite put my finger on why, though. It was beautiful, detailed, amazingly life-like, emotional, and gut-wrenching. But something didn't... click, the way its predecessors did. I'm kinda confused about it, honestly.

(Part 1 of 2)

Yeah, I was skeptical about buying it too, but I got it for Christmas so that solved that problem. Just finished it yesterday, so lets see if I can sum up my thoughts here.

Catalyst is set up as a sandbox game. The city (called the City of Glass this time, instead of just a nameless futuristic city) is completely open to exploration, and the map is filled with side objectives like deliveries and time trials. The parkour gameplay definitely benefits from this in a lot of ways. The first game was fantastic at replicating the feel of freerunning on rooftops, but it was always held back a bit by the restrictions of linearity. Picking a random direction and just going for it really feels great. Seems that the controls have been refined from the first game, everything is pretty smooth and responsive. The awful shooting aspect has been completely cut this time, so all combat is hand-to-hand. (Some enemies will still shoot at you, you just don't shoot back.) Combat is much better and more varied, but Catalyst still falls into the same trap of dumping too many enemies on you in some of the later missions. Not to the extent of the first, thankfully, and 9 times out of 10 you can simply avoid combat altogether, but there were still a couple areas of pure frustration toward the end.

Catalyst is a reboot more than anything, definitely not a sequel but neither a prequel to the original, and as such there were a ton of callbacks to sequences and events from ME1. And yet, to me, none of them really resonated as much. Perhaps it's because I was comparing these rehashes to how I felt when I first witnessed them in ME1, and the effect just wasn't the same. Not to say Catalyst doesn't do its fair share of new things, cause it does. Just feels like there won't be as many moments in Catalyst that stick with me.

People complained about the story in ME1, perhaps for being too simple and straightforward. It was a very personal story about Faith trying to save her sister despite their grievances with each other, and I always appreciated that as a nice change of pace to all the epic, world saving stuff. They definitely tried to shake things up with the narrative this time, but it's really nothing that hasn't been done in this genre before. I saw the "big twist" coming a mile away, but I guess I'm just too genre savvy for my own good at this point. I did appreciate the much more nuanced characters in Catalyst, for sure.

I saw your comment on Ghosthack's page about Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. I played the original and enjoyed it, AND I enjoyed the new one. I think I'm in the minority though on that one.

I've started using a new video hosting site, but if you're interested I've posted both my reviews for both games on the new site if you'd like to watch.

ME1 - [Link]
ME2 - [Link]

Yeah, it was a lucky find at a PlayItAgain store. If I can find Suikoden II on PSN for PS4, I'll be sure to nab it!

I thought Shadow of Mordor okay, but didn't find it worthy of a lot of the praise it initially got.

SC2 wraps up beautifully. Campaign missions are much more well designed, similar to WoL, so even on Normal some can be a challenge your first time through. Actually haven't even finished the campaign yet with the holidays, so I can't spoil how it ends for you... but it's been a blast so far!!

Yep. Fallout 4 has a pretty sweet weather system that sometimes includes radioactive storms.

Not sure I can give an accurate comparison. I have practically no experience playing on PC. The only first-person PC gaming I ever did was Wolfenstein 3D back in the day, and that was just at my cousin's house from time to time. So while I'm sure most FP games do probably play better on PC, I wouldn't know. I'm used to consoles and have no problem with the controls.

That being said, the shooting mechanics in Fallout 3 and New Vegas were pretty much crap. There's not really any getting around it. I've heard it wasn't much better on PC, but on console especially it was pretty hard to make accurate shots manually. (Still managed to master the art of the sniper rifle headshot, cause I'm all about that game.) But VATS made that a moot point. Fallout 4 on the other hand, has much improved shooting, melee combat, and just general controls. I've been using VATS pretty sparingly, actually. In my opinion, it plays great. No complaints here.

As for whether you should get it on PS4... I don't see any reason not to. Can't imagine you'd have an issue with the controls. Heck, consoles are even getting Fallout 4 mod support at some point. Can't make mods, but you will be able to download them. I mean, obviously I am weak because I broke down and bought a Bethesda game at launch. That's just asking for trouble, but I couldn't wait. And I'm glad I didn't. It is awesome. I don't really see any problem with the controls, and although it's 30 FPS on console, it all looks great and runs pretty smoothly. Occasionally I'll get a little lag while exploring, but not very often. Load times are also greatly reduced. And any glitches so far have been pretty standard stuff that happens in practically every open world game. Only one instance of something flying through the air so far (the body of a raider on a high tower I sniped, it was oddly satisfying), and one terrifying encounter with an invisible feral ghoul. That wasn't so satisfying.

No problem!
Thanks for your comment too. The funny thing about the Sanjuro drawing though, I actually didn't know about Kurosawa and the Yojimbo and Sanjuro movies before I made it. That was all because I met a friend from Japan on Playstation Home, who told me about those and then commissioned that drawing (there's also a post about it on my Tumblr).

I also started taking a watercolor painting class recently... just have to see how that goes because I've never been much of a painter, especially with watercolor!

Looking at your games reminds me I'd like to try the Suikoden series sometime, even if it's just the first 2 on PSN. I really need more time to play games though

Hi! Just dropped by but had to say I really like that banner, that's a great Okami theme!

It came out wonderfully, the blossoms floating off the page there is a really nice effect.

I'm pretty sure I got as far as the guy with the strangely-named sword...Pillow Talk? Haha, and some sort of giant spider enemy. But I have a bad habit of losing interest in great games for some reason. I definitely remember liking it. The art style is to die for, as well as the soundtrack.

I had no idea the Wii version had issues, but I guess it's too late now. I got it as a gift, and the Wii was my only console at the time. It's a shame, but I think getting to play the game at all is probably worth it despite any issues. I didn't notice any while playing, but that was years ago, anyway. Looking back, the motion controls seem a perfect fit for the brush mechanic, but I'm not terribly precise enough with the Wiimote, I think...

Thanks, the colors are gorgeous aren't they? I've been in a very "Middle-Earth"-y mood lately, so I'm quite happy with the theme.

GORGEOUS theme. Makes me want to give Okami another shot.

2014 was a rollercoaster year for me. Broke off an engagement, moved across the metro area, left two jobs, started a new job, promoted at yet another (currently working two)... oh, and found a new girl with a 14yo daughter that I am moving across country to be with me this summer.

Gaming this last year has been more of an escape and a time-killer than for real enjoyment, unfortunately. Those titles that I have REALLY enjoyed--*Banner Saga*--I devour so quickly it barely makes a dent in my backlog. Hopefully some real progress this year after taxes and a new PC rig.