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Currently Playing…Battle Chasers: Nightwar (PS4)

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I’m hoping that all my fellow comic nerds out there remember the late 90’s comic series, Battle Chasers. It was created by one of my favorite artists on this planet, Joe Madureira, who is known for mixing Anime designs with really detailed American-style shading techniques. His style blew my mind when he was drawing Uncanny X-men, but once he started to work on Battle Chasers, he really started to hit his stride as a penciller. He was and still is one of the major influences of my pencil work, which makes this review a little hard to do. But my job is to give unbiased opinions for you guys, and I would be doing a crappy job if I told you that this game is amazing.

Battle Chasers starts out promising. The visuals are really sharp and you can tell that a ton of time was put into character design, the environments as well as the cut scenes. I was a little annoyed that the beginning of the game was a longer cut scene that lasts several minutes before you can actually play. Once you can actually play the game is pretty decent to begin with. It’s an old school JRPG with some unique elements that work well. There are two different kind of maps in this game: one that is an overworld view with different map points you move between and enemy encounters that are clearly identified, and the others are Diablo-esque dungeons. I really liked the dungeons and love the idea of mixing dungeon exploration with a turn-based JRPG. Each character in your party has different abilities that help you get through the dungeon. Before you enter a dungeon you have the choice of difficulty level, the harder the difficulty the better the loot you can pick up. The majority of Nightwar is actually spent in the randomly generated dungeons. But there is also plenty of side quests, crafting, and exploring to do in this game, I still haven’t become disinterested in the game because there is always something to do.

Ok, so what else did I like about this game? Other than the visuals and the dungeons that I mentioned above, the combat feels old school, which I love, yet also had a fresh feeling with the Overdrive mechanic. Usually you pay mana to use spells and special abilities, but by doing attacks you build up your Overdrive meter, which when fully charged, lets you use abilities for free, increases damage, etc. It adds an additional element of strategy to each fight, do you use the Overdrive early and try to build it up again? Or do you hold off until you have a boss on the ropes? I also like that random enemy encounters are not a thing in this game. It’s one of my pet peeves about other RPGs. Nothing worse than trying to walk somewhere and getting constantly bombarded by random enemies.

Okay, so now onto the bad stuff. The game crashed a few times on me. After some interwebz research, I wasn’t the only one that this happened to. I was very, very thankful that it autosaves so much so I didn’t really lose much. Still, this is something that is unforgivable in a finished product. I also found the inventory screen to be clunky and confusing, as well as having tiny font (I played this on my 60″), and the font was still on the smaller side. If it wasn’t for these issues, one being major, this game is actually decent as far as a JRPG goes. So back to the end of the first paragraph, I can’t say this game is amazing, don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly one of the better JRPGs that has been released in the past couple of years, but the bug and the menu design hold it back from being great. Is it worth the $25 price tag? Absolutely. Is it perfect? No, but still fun.

Buy it: If you’re an old school JRPG fan, like Diablo and used to be a fan of the Battle Chasers comic. It’s really neat seeing the characters come to life so to speak.

Try it: If you like JRPGs, this game is worth giving giving a shot. Is it Final Fantasy 3? No, but you might want to consider adding it to your collection anyways.

Walk by it: If you’re looking for a perfectly polished game. Or you have kids. Seriously, don’t buy this for your kids. Red Monika’s outfit is a bit much, and hers is not the only one, there is a witch in the game that leaves very little to the imagination. 

Digital Playground

Super Saiyan!

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Introduction

The 2 Guys Gaming got together for the first time in months. With the business of the holidays, the start of the new semester, and just general overall old man Mr. Winter, we just weren’t able to connect and make plans. Whenever we do, we both say that we need to do it more often and then life gets in the way. Well, I’ve made last year and this year about telling life to go to hell when it decides to get in the way of my grand plans. We’ve got games to play and podcasts to record!

During this visit, we tried out his new arcade stick emulator, Padora’s Boxx by beating the old classic puncher X-Men. It seemed much shorter and easier than when I was a teenager. it’s a game where you walk sideways and punch things. It’s not like we were playing 3 dimensional chess back then. Why did the game seem so difficult? Well, Chris and I didn’t have to plug quarters into the machine. When you aren’t paying a quarter every 5 minutes to revive your character, you aren’t as aware of your limitations when playing the game.

The difficulty is ratcheted up, though when you are hitting the enemy with skateboards and vacuum cleaners instead of lasers and Adamantium claws.

We also did a Winchester draft (more on that in a couple of days) and played some of the new fighting game Dragonball Fighterz. Chris has raved about the game to me and he even wrote a review of the game last week. He was so excited about the game that I couldn’t wait to play it. We waited until the end of the night to play. Without giving too much away, it was worth the wait.

The Good

The best part of the game is that they have made it very noob friendly. I had never played the game. I hadn’t even watched any gameplay videos like I told Chris I might after seeing some screenshots and thinking that the game looked absolutely gorgeous. I was going in completely blind, so to speak. That made no difference.

The move scheme is, as Chris explained it, “If you can do a fireball motion, you are all set”. Because of that, I was pulling off crazy combos right out of the gate. Well, based on my previous experience in fighting games, they were crazy combos. I imagine in this day and age, they are just a basic combo that any preschooler could pull off with his eyes closed and both hands ties behind his back. I even beat Chris in the first game. Beginner’s luck?

And you had to walk through the snow, uphill both ways, in order to pull off a combo.

Then I beat him again, and a third time. I can’t remember how many times I actually beat him in a row before he finally got a win, but it was at least three. More on that in a bit. It sounds weird and it might just have been because I was new to the game, but it felt like something different happened every match.

One time, one of the characters flew up into the air, seemed to collect a bunch of energy, and then threw it down onto the other guy. Another time, Chris finished my guy off by throwing him threw 3 mountains, bringing the third one down on top of me. Several times, it looked like an atom bomb went off to end the fight.

One time, I somehow pulled off some sort of “finishing” move. It was called an ultimate devastation or something like that. It wasn’t quite a fatality like from Mortal Kombat. The camera panned back, the animation was a huge explosion, and then the words came across the screen. I can’t remember exactly what the words were and I can’t find any evidence of it online, but both Chris and I sat in stunned silence for a few seconds. He finally said, “I’ve never seen that happen before.” Mind you, he’s been playing the game about 2 hours a day for a week to this point.

Animations like this are commonplace. Needless to say, this isn’t a game for those with epilepsy. Heck, they may find that it’s bad for people who have functioning eyes.

The Bad

Naturally, having grown up during the hey day of Street Fighter 2, I’m a Capcom baby. Since this game utilizes a lot of the same functionality in moves and super combos, it made me think of the Capcom games. In fact, during our games, Chris said something like “Capcom should take notes.” While I agree, that’s not quite my main disagreement. Because I grew up with the Capcom characters, I know which characters I like and which I don’t. Having never watched any DragonballZ, I had no idea about anything about any of the characters. I knew some of the names from various memes and everyone knows the “over 9000!” line. Other than that, though, I knew nothing.

In addition, there aren’t that many characters to begin with. I mean, the character selection screen is full, but many of those characters are just alternate versions of the other characters. I think I counted 3 or 4 different Gokus and that might be low. Again, as a new entry into the Dragonball Z universe, maybe there just aren’t that many characters in the series. However, as someone who likes a variety of characters to choose and try out in a new game, that was a bit disappointing.

Finally, with all of the interaction and animations, they do get stale. Most notably, the entry animation when one of your characters gets knocked out gets old real fast because it never changes. The new character just flies in along with the opposing character and they punch each other’s fists. This is quite disappointing as I was at least expecting each pair of characters to have their own animations similar to the beginning fight sequences.

Yep, that’s it. I kid you not.

The Ugly

I know that I often struggle to find “The Ugly” for many of these articles, but this game is as close to a perfect fighter as I’ve played in a long time. Other than the few minor nit picks I had for “The Bad” section, I have no complaints about this game. Certainly not anything that could possibly be elevated to “Ugly” status.

So, I will just take this space to gloat a little bit more. It took Chris a few matches to finally beat me and I probably won about 70-75% of the matches that we played. I suppose we could just call it all beginners luck, but I’m going to go with L2P Noob. I’m just too good for you.

Shots fired, Bro.

The Verdict

As we were playing, I said to Chris, I definitely have to get an XBox One. I actually said that I wanted to get an XBox One and a PS4 because I didn’t think that Dragonball was a cross platform title. I have no idea why I thought that. I think I’m just looking for a reason to spend money that I don’t have on things I don’t need. I’m a complicated individual.

So, now more than ever, I want to buy an XBox One. We can get Minecraft that allows for cross platform support. We can get Dragonball Fighterz and Chris made the point that the boys would really get a kick out of the game. He’s right. Dragonball Fighterz is selling consoles (at least to me) and I don’t know when the last time a fighting game made me want to own a console.

I’m sure anyone who wants to play the game already has done so. However, if you are like me and have somehow avoided both purchasing either and XBox One or PS4 and the game, then you need to go out and buy it right now. You will not be disappointed. Heck, the game has even made it to EVO already as Chris predicted that it probably would. At least for me, that is must see viewing.

Digital Playground

Currently Playing…Dragonball FighterZ (PS4)

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Well, if you read my ?Rapid Firea’? post from a couple of days ago then you know that I was eagerly awaiting my copy of Dragonball FighterZ. Turns out our local UPS terminal must be avid readers of this site because lo and behold, the game was delivered that night. I eagerly ripped opened the box and had the game in my PS4 before you could say a’?Gokua’?. I then received the familiar message that most PS4 owners have seen, a’?Not enough memorya’?. After the stream of expletives fell out of my mouth, I started the unpleasant task of finding items that I could delete. 35 minutes later, I was able to finally the start the game. Have I mentioned how much I love to play this game? Ya”know, the find and pick stuff to delete that you dona”t really want to delete game? Thanks to Sony for putting such HUGE hard drives on these things. Yes, Ia”m aware that I can go out and spend $60-$150 for an external hard drive but I shouldna”t have to after dropping 300 on the console! But I digress, this is about Dragonball Fighter Z and not Sony.

When I first fired it up I was a little disappointed that I had to setup an online username and character. Ia”m a pretty antisocial gamer and I wasna”t planning on spending ANY time online with it so this felt like a waste of time. After getting setup, you must choose a lobby to join. The maximum characters in a lobby is 64, so there might be times when you start up the game and you wona”t be allowed into that lobby because of too many players, so then you have to either choose another lobby or hit [Triangle] to go to an offline lobby, which is just you (Hoozah!). The lobby is essentially just an area that serves as a main menu for the game, so you can walk around to what modes you want to try out or hit [L2] to bring up a list of areas and you can just warp to it. After perusing the lobby for a while, I found that I didna”t mind it has much, yes there are other players running around, but unless you go into a tournament or the arena, you dona”t really interact with them.

After the playing the game for a couple of hours, I sent Shawn a text saying that while I might just be in the moment, this is the best fighter I have ever played. And most of the games that I play are fighters. After putting more time into the game, I can confirm that it *is* the best fighter Ia”ve played. The graphics are amazing, the combat is fast paced, the combos are really easy to perform, and if you can throw a fireball in Street Fighter, you can perform any super combo. No a’?hold back for 2 seconds, forward, back, down-right, forwarda’? nonsense in this game. It really keeps the fight flowing and after a match or two, I was performing 30+ hit combos. If you hit the heavy attack [Circle] you hit your opponent against the wall and they bounce off of it, hit [Circle] again and you perform a a’?Dragon Rusha’?, which means that you fly into the character to juggle them. The game does take skill though, you have to time those combos to keep them going. Dragonball FighterZ is the closest thing to Marvel vs Capcom 2 that Ia”ve played to date. MvC2 is usually my benchmark that I compare all other fighters to, but after many years, I have to say that ita”s been dethroned as far as overall gameplay goes. While similar, (both are 3 on 3 tag fighters with great gameplay mechanics), MvC2 has more than twice the amount of characters that DBZ has. I believe MvC2 has 56 characters, as opposed to DBZ having 21. That said, I found that I wasna”t bored with the character selection at all. Although, I did buy the a’?Day One Editiona’? which comes with a code for an additional 2 characters that you normally have to beat a’?Arcadea’? mode on hard to get. At this point I have played as all of the characters multiple times and Ia”m still figuring out new ways to chain combos together. Thata”s the thing with this game, ita”s easy to pick up and play, but only after putting in a good chunk of time was I able to see that while it looks simplistic, ita”s intricate under the surface.

I thought I was going to have buyera”s remorse after paying full price for this game, but I had been looking forward to it since E3 and just couldna”t help myself. Ia”m happy to report that I dona”t regret it all, this game is worth every penny. Ita”s an instant classic and the hype was real.

Buy It: If youa”re a fan of 2D fighters, crazy 3 on 3 battles, or just love stringing together those combos in fighting games.

Try It: No, just buy it. Ita”s worth owning.

Walk by it: If youa”re not into fighters, or more of a a’?realistica’? fighter fan (i.e Tekken, Soul Calibur, DOA).

Final Score:
Dragonball FighterZ: 10/10 (!)

Digital Playground

Currently Playing…Trackmania Turbo (PS4)

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Trackmania Turbo is one of those games that you think might be really repetitious and get boring quick, but is actually really sneaky good. My wife bought this game for me for Christmas and I’ve been playing it religiously ever since. This game is different from most racers because instead of racing head to head against a buddy or the CPU, you compete for the best track times in order to win medals. I know, it sounds really boring! No head to head racing?! Time trials?! Trust me, it’s probably one of the most fun racing games out there that I’ve played.

The tracks are something out of a Hot Wheels game, from crazy upside-down loop to loops, to jumping huge gaps, it’s pretty intense. Soon, you become so focused on beating the times that you don’t care that there isn’t a car next to you. There are about 200 tracks and all are short but very cool, no Forza-length tracks here, guys. In fact most of the them are under a minute long. The game is also capable of making tracks for you and you can also try other players’ tracks, making it pretty tough to run out of tracks to try out. Hint: master the e-brake because you’re going to need it on most of the tracks in the game.

The game can get frustrating at times because you will find yourself having to replay tracks many times over if you want to get the gold medal. To alleviate some of the frustration, there are checkpoints that you can hit a button and restart from which comes in handy on the gold medal tries. Silver is slightly easier to obtain but you will probably find yourself replaying some tracks a few times. Bronze is pretty easy, as long as you don’t crash too hard you should be able to get the qualifying time.

To me, the best part of the entire game is the track builder. There is something really fun about designing your own crazy little track, setting the challenge times and then seeing if your buddy can beat it. I actually think that out of all of the time I’ve spent on this game, a majority has been playing around and designing my own tracks.

I’m not a huge racing fan, but this game really surprised me. For the most part, I play it every other day and still really enjoy it. The gameplay is addictive, the tracks are entertaining and the track builder is really easy and fun. I give this game a 8.5/10

Buy it: If you’re a fan of all racing games, not just the Forzas and Gran Turismos of the gaming world. You won’t find realistic cars in this game. Just really fun racing.

Try it: If you’re a fan of arcade-style racers, but not sure if the time trial style racing is for you.

Walk by it: If you’re only a fan of realistic head to head competitive racing then this game isn’t for you.

Digital Playground

Currently Playing…Vol.17

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Street Fighter V (PS4): First things first; I have always been a Capcom guy. Yeah, yeah, I know that I have been slightly (highly) critical of their policy of releasing the same game over and over with a few tweaks and calling it “Super”, “Ultra”, or “Arcade” but that never stopped me from picking up one of their titles and greatly enjoying it. Whether it was playing and getting destroyed by Shawn or waiting until he went home and showing the CPU that I was still the boss, I’ve always put hours into each Street Fighter title. Which is why this is a tough review. Let’s get right to it:

Grade: F

Yes. An “F”. Why? It’s simple. Capcom released a very bare bones, incomplete version of a Street Fighter game. No single player arcade mode, no single player “VS” mode, the graphics are polished but not all that different from last gen’s SF titles, and, well, as Shawn so eloquently put it “Damn, eSports kids”, in reference to this game clearly being designed with online gaming in mind. I suppose it’s my own fault as I could have read the reviews and most likely saw that this game was poorly made, but I prefer to stay away from other reviews so I can give an unbiased one of my own for you guys.

The good news is that Capcom just released an update (9 gb?!!!) that adds the ability to fight CPU characters in VS mode. However still no Arcade mode unfortunately..I guess me and the rest of the suckers who bought this crap version of Street Fighter will have to wait for Super or Ultra Street Fighter V. Avoid this game, you’ll thank me.

Digital Playground

Currently Playing…Vol.16

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God of War 3 Remastered (PS4): Usually I skip any “remastered” version of a game (which is ironic because the other game I’m going to talk about is remastered as well. HAH!), but since I don’t currently own a PS3 and never played GOW3, I figured I’d give into the cash grab. I’m a huge GOW fan (I own every one in the series, besides the PS3 version), and from what I’d heard this game was amazing. I strolled into Gamestop (I go once or twice a week), and grabbed a preowned copy off the shelf. While I was mulling over if a used copy was worth $25, another customer walked up to me holding GOW3. He was about to trade it in (re: get lowballed) and wanted to know if I was interested. $10 later we both walked away happy. I saved myself $15 and he probably got about $5 more than what they would have offered. Ok, great story, but what about the game? Well right away the graphics jump out at you..the game is gorgeous. It’s essentially the same gameplay though, solve puzzles, kill things, fight giant bosses, upgrade weapons and Magic,..etc. I think some people were turned off that not much changed, but to me, this series has been gaming perfection, so if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. The story has the same general premise as the others; kill Zeus. The boss fights last longer than the older GOW titles in my opinion and feel more epic. My only complaint is the QTE’s (quick time events). There seems to be more of them, and while not especially challenging, they can be annoying after awhile and take away from the fast paced combat. All in all, it’s a typical God of War game which means that it’s pretty close to perfect. Now would I run out and buy it if I already owned the PS3 version? No, I’ve seen the side by side graphics comparison and while the remastered edition is slightly more polished, I don’t think it’s worth spending the extra cash on a remastered edition…unless you can get it for $1 0.

Grade: A-

Ducktales Remastered (360): I actually used to own the original NES version of this game. It was a childhood favorite of mine, and to be honest, ranked right up there with Mario as far as platforms go. The remastered edition still holds its own and is just as fun as the original. The levels and bosses have been redesigned so it feels like a new game even if you played the original. The graphics make you feel like you are in an episode of Ducktales, and are obviously a vast improvement over the original. You control Scrooge McDuck as he travels the globe in search of artifacts and treasure, while attempting to stop Magica DeSpell from taking Scrooge’s #1 dime and hatching her evil plan. Some reviewers have said that this game doesn’t hold against newer Mario titles, and while I agree for the most part, I feel that the only things that held this game back are the massive amount of cut scenes that the developer added to make the story flow, and the overall length of the game. While there are hidden areas to find and explore it feels like Ducktales can be beaten in a night and the cut scenes are really, really annoying after awhile (even if you can skip them, which you will find yourself doing A LOT). To be honest, Ducktales Remastered would have been graded higher without the cutscenes. Still, this title is worth picking up if you get a chance and are looking for something light hearted to play or just looking for something to play with your kids.

Grade: C+

Digital Playground

Currently Playing..Vol.15

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  • Dragon Quest Heroes -World Tree’s Woe and The Blight Below (PS4): As a fan of anything Dragon Quest (I almost bought the little blue slime stuffed pillow..true story), I couldn’t resist this title on the Pre-Owned rack at Gamestop. I plunked $24.99 of my hard-earned cash on the counter, rejected the employee’s awkward attempt at upselling and sped home, eager to start a new Dragon Quest adventure. If I may veer off the beaten path for a minute..is it me or is the Gamestop upsell crap a little annoying? Do you remember when the upsell just consisted of “Do you want to insure your disc for an extra $2.00?” Now it’s “Do you want to insure your disc? Picking up any controllers today? Placing any Pre-Orders today?” I always bite back my sarcastic response of, “Oh yeah!!! I completely forgot about a controller! Because they are so godamn cheap and clearly an impulse item! A Pre-Order! Yes! Let me plop down cash on a game that isn’t even out yet y’know just in case there is a looting incident and the 127 copies you will have in stock sell out! Oh and I get some silly-ass t-shirt and free downloadable content that will be available for free anyways on the next printing of the game? Well sign me up!!”

Ahem. What am I writing about? Ah yes, Dragon Quest Heroes. To my surprise this isn’t a traditional DQ (Yeah, us people in the “know” call it DQ..hmm…why do I want ice cream now?…), no, this game is more like Dynasty Warriors. You form a party of 4 warriors and basically tear through hundreds and hundreds of monsters. It’s like a beat ‘m up mixed with an RPG and sprinkled with a small bit of strategy..a very small bit. The story is that, unlike the traditional DQ game, humans peacefully coexist with monsters. That is until some Count Chocula lookalike, no wait, I can do better, The Count from Sesame Street lookalike shows up and casts a spell driving all of the monsters crazy (yes, I am proud of of that Sesame Street reference) causing them to attack humans. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as his plan goes as he wants to destroy the humans, destroy The World Tree, release darkness upon the world, and essentially just be a bad egg. Along the course of your quest, you meet up with fellow heroes from different dimensions and they join your cause. FYI, Aurora is the stronger of the two starting characters and as for the rest of your party Bianca, Terry and Yangus are beasts. Most people who have played this game seem to agree with me. Okay so that’s the story so how about the gameplay? Well it’s fun, you mindlessly bash the snot out of monsters using weapons you find, buy, or craft. You level up as you would in any RPG and as your level increases you are granted skill points which can be used to boost your attack, defense, intelligence, and can also be used to unlock your characters’ special abilities and spells. Sounds pretty neat, right? Well, yes it is, for awhile..then the levels get repetitive. Basically there a few different types of levels; you guard on object (I.e a gate, a person, or a World Tree root) from the hordes of monsters, a boss level, or a level where you have to destroy all the monsters on the map. Yes, the levels themselves are aesthetically different but the core mechanic stays the same and tends to turn this game into a bit of a bore. I have about 30 hrs into it, and I just don’t see myself playing it too much longer. Don’t get me wrong, in small spurts this game is pretty fun, but anything longer than an hour at a time and you’ll find yourself yawning too.

Grade: C–

Digital Playground

Currently Playing…Vol.14

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Call of Duty Black Ops 3 (PS4): Despite currently having a hectic work schedule that doesn’t leave as much time as I would like for gaming, I decided that a PS4 was at a low enough price point and worth the investment. I also decided to go with the Call of Duty Black Ops 3 bundle, as I’m a fan of the shooter genre. More so the zombie/ sci first kind as opposed to military style games. However last year Shawn brought over Modern Warfare 3 and despite being unable to complete the first mission (go ahead, laugh, I’ll wait……………….done?), we had a decent time laughing at how awful I was. With that in mind, I decided to improve my skills with a next gen Call of Duty title. I really wanted to like this game. I really did, but it just felt like more of the same. Yes, the visuals were improved compared to the older titles on X360, but once you get past that, it’s essentially the same as the others. You run around shooting bad guys, hopefully in the head (gotta get those trophies ya savages), complete missions..etc..rinse and repeat. There is a zombie mode, but it’s lackluster at best and not enough to make this game interesting for me.

Grade: Yes I’m grading games now, kind of a TLDR thing, don’t want to read my insightful reviews, then just skip to the grade. Ok, so without further ado…C

Shovel Knight(PS4): As you may know, I’m a huge retro gamer, I still play my Neo Geo just as much as my PS4. With that said this game blew me away. The game was designed to look like an NES game, complete with 8 bit graphics and classic platformer/Action RPG gameplay (it reminds me of the 2nd Legend of Zelda). You play as the Shovel Knight who’s main weapon is…say it with me, a shovel. It allows you to find hidden rooms, collect treasure, and beat some monster ass. You travel to different realms hunting for special weapons, completing quests for villagers, all in the quest of defeating the evil sorceress who has corrupted a handful of knights who serve as level bosses. Sounds easy right? Whack a baddy with a shovel, find hidden stuff, beat the heck out of some magical chick. Slow down there tiger, the difficulty ramps up about 3-4 levels in, and some levels/bosses can be frustrating. I actually had a pretty hard time defeating the boss of the Lich Yard, the Specter Knight, and that’s only a few levels deep. It never feels impossible though, which is a good thing as PS4 controllers are expensive and I don’t want to break mine in a Shovel Knight-induced fit of rage. All in all just a great game that I can’t recommend enough.

Grade: A

Digital Playground

All I want for Christmas

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(Editor’s Note: The Noob of All Trades goes back to the future of two years ago to finally maybe join the present of video games.)

Regular visitors to the page (shout out to the both of you!) know that Chris and I are traditionalists–grumpy old men–when it comes to games, especially video games. We have Magic as our go to table top game, but we have branched out to others like Herclix and Dicemasters. Rarely do we ever branch out into new video game territory. Hell, neither of us even owns a PS4, XBox One or Wii U and those are soon to be last gen.

It’s not that I think new video games are bad. I will be the first to admit that I don’t understand the appeal of all of the Call of Duty games. Most new games, however, impress me with their graphics and story. I guess that I just haven’t been impressed enough to spend the money on one of the systems. If you know anything about building drama, you know that this is the point where I write, “Until now…”

Then again, games are tough to enjoy when you spend most of your time waiting for the respawn timer to expire.
Then again, games are tough to enjoy when you spend most of your time waiting for the respawn timer to expire.

Until now, none of the next generation systems from the last couple ofyears have not dropped in price to the point that i’m a comfortable paying yet, but I am considering a purchase of two of them if Santa doesn’t bring them. Which two? You may be asking. If so, thanks for asking and let me explain.

The first one should be obvious if you’ve followed my articles over the past few weeks. Actually, both of them should be obvious, but one is maybe slightly more obvious, so I will start there. I grew up with video games. We owned an Atari 2600 and even a 7800. I played (and beat) the game considered by some to be the worst of all time, E.T. I received Jungle Hunt as a gift after receiving 14 stitches in my head. I can still play Pitfall to a stand still in the timed mode.

Doesn't look so bad does it? Certainly not deserving of its reputation as a barren Hellscape of a game. There are plenty of games I'd put below E.T. Call of Duty among them.
Doesn’t look so bad does it? Certainly not deserving of its reputation as a barren Hellscape of a game. There are plenty of games I’d put below E.T. Call of Duty among them.

Our parents bought us an NES one year for Christmas. Upon playing Mario for the first time, I immediately switched allegiance from Atari to Nintendo. I had a brief fling with Sega during the Genesis days and overpaid for a Playstation, but Nintendo remains my favorite system and game maker. Even now, during a time when other gamers flock away from the “casual” nature of Wiimotes and Amibos, I remain firmly in the corner of Big N.

Two games, especially finally have me excited about the prospects of owning a Wii U. The first is Super Mario Maker. I know nothing about this game, but the name alone makes my heart flutter. When I mentioned it to him, he seemed less than enthusiastic about it. I started to wonder if maybe my own enthusiasm might be misplaced. Nintendo is capable of making bad games, after all. However,Liam has since filled me in on some of the details and I’m even more jazzed about the game.

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Nintendo can make bad games. After all, remember this turd? Yeah, me neither.

He said to me the other day, “I thought you could just make levels, Dad. But, now I realize that you can share them with people, too. That’s really cool.” See, I was under the impression from the beginning that was the appeal of the game. I’m glad that I was not wrong. I’d have been very disappointed otherwise. I mean, how many times have you played a Mario game and thought, This level would be so much cooler if they did this. If you anything like me, you’ve lost count. I can’t wait to unleash those ideas on unsuspecting gamers.

The other game for Wii U–the one that pushed me over the edge–is Smash Bros. I played the first one many years ago. I’m a fan of fighting games and a fighting game with all of the Nintendo characters sounded great. Unlike MK and SF, games that both have a robust one player mode, Smash Bros is a fighting game for people with friends. Now that Liam and Aiden are both old enough and taking an interest in games, I want to try Smash Bros as intended. Other games interest me, too, but those are the two games that make me most want Santa to bring a Wii U.

Come on, Fat Man! Don't let us down!
Come on, Fat Man! Don’t let us down!

My second system of choice on the list is also obvious, though maybe less so. I went with Microsoft during the 360/PS3 generation mainly for the Kinect that now lies buried in my big box of dead electronics. I thought about continuing with the XBox One because I figured that both machines were the same and I wanted to stay consistent. That attitude persisted until recently.

I mentioned to Kevin (he of Episode 2 infamy) that I wanted one of the systems and that I was leaning in the direction of XBox One. He stated flatly that the PS4 is better. I trust his advice and now I’m definitely going to get a PS4 at some point when I have the spare cash. I don’t have to explain two of the reasons for my interest, as I went into it in an early article.

i will write, briefly, on another game that recently got my attention again. I loaded up DOOM on my Steam account the other day. I’ve been thinking of doing some playthrough videos of the game to show secrets. While playing, it triggered in my brain that a new one is in development for the PS4 and XBox One. It is also coming out on PC, but I need another reason to convince my skeptical wife that I must ahve another video game machine. None of it, of course, will change her mind, but a new DOOM game has left no doubt that I’m soon going to own a PS4. Maybe I’ll buy myself one for my birthday next month.

Posted this to the Instagram account with the caption, "Still one of the best feelings in gaming." I hope that your character gets that same grin in the new game.
Posted this to the Instagram account with the caption, “Still one of the best feelings in gaming.” I hope that your character gets that same grin in the new game.