Top Ten Games of 2012: Day Three

8. Assassin's Creed III

The Assassin's Creed series is not a franchise I am a fan of. I have been pretty vocal about how overrated I feel the series is since it has existed. It isn't that the games are really that bad, actually they're not bad at all. The original game in the series has always left a bad taste in my mouth due to the respective nature of the gameplay and the dull mission design. Assassin's Creed's successors have greatly improved upon the original game, but I still could not connect with the story, characters, nor stick with the game long enough to finish any of them. Assassin's Creed III changed all of that for me... kind of.

Now that Ubisoft has taken the franchise somewhere new and interesting, my interest in the series returned, giving Assassin's Creed III a shot. Taking place in America in the late 1700's before the Revolutionary War, ACIII introduces a new character named Connor, a Young Native American boy who trains in the arts of the assassin to avenge his mother's death, yet gets tangled into a much larger ordeal. This time around, the characters are much more interesting, have better motives for their actions, and get involved in much more interesting situations than ever before. I personally connected with Connor more than I ever did with Ezio or Altiar from the previous two games. The player does not even see the main protagonist of the game until roughly three or four hours into the single player campaign, in which the player takes control of a whole different character completely. Normally this would be an odd decision for a game, yet Ubisoft pulls it off greatly by giving the character plenty of backstory on this mystery character who plays a huge role in the story, thus making the game's story even more grand and epic in scale.

The story and setting really are the heart of Assassin's Creed III, because the gameplay has changed little from the past game. You still travel from mini-map beacon to mini-map beacon, stealth killing and sword fighting goons in your path and ultimately assassinating some major player in the story's plight. In order to uncover the full map, the game requires you to still climb on top of towers to get a view of the surrounding environment, and then jump into a hay pile. Aside from the new hunter/gather mechanics in the forests outside of towns, this is still the same ol' Assassin's Creed. Normally this would have turned me off, but the story and characters are so strong here that it kept me going through the game to see what happens next, and rarely are you disappointed. The game's multiplayer hasn't had any kind of drastic overhaul or anything, but it still includes a fairly unique multiplayer experience that some will love. The multiplayer really did nothing for me personally, though.

Assassin's Creed III is an odd choice for me, because the game still includes the same gameplay intact that always put me off in the past. However, this is not a game that I can scoff at lightly due to how well Ubisoft tells a story and sets the player in situations that allow me to forgive any issues I have with how the game plays. I honestly believe any Assassin's Creed hater should still give the game a shot regardless of how they feel about the series. Ubisoft has attracted what seems like many haters with this title, but maybe whatever they changed that turned people off on this year's game are the changes that got me on board. Assassin's Creed III is my #8 game of 2012.

Top Ten Games of 2012: Day Two

9. X-COM: Enemy Unknown

The turn-based strategy genre is not a genre that generally interests me. I have dabbled in many of the RPGs in the genre (Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Shining Force) and the combat games in the genre (Advance Wars, Valkyria Chronicles) and I could never fully grasp the gameplay nor have fun trying to learn. I blame this mostly on the fact that these type of games have little to no tutorial to ease the player into the mechanics, so I sort of get lost and confused and quickly give up. All of that was until I got my hands on X-COM: Enemy Unknown for the PC, a turn-based science fiction strategy game by developer Fireaxis. I have not played any of the previous games in the series, but the rave reviews and cool story the game sports had me curious to at least give it a try. I'm glad I did.

The best thing about X-COM is that my major complaint with turn-based strategy games has been addressed by Fireaxis; give the player a tutorial and teach us how to properly play! The first couple of missions consist of fun and engaging tutorials that fit naturally into the campaign rather than making the player wish they would be over as soon as possible. During these training missions, the player receives a good amount of story to set up X-COM's tale while also actually teaching the player how the rules of a turn-based strategy game works. When I'm playing X-COM, I do not feel like the game is smarter than I while also feeling like I am wrapping my head around a game of chess, yet I'm still spending a lot of time strategizing and thinking before I act. Thank you Fireaxis, because this is definitely the kind of game I needed to ease me into a game of this type.

One of the most surprising elements of X-COM is the squad building tools. You can name and edit each soldier in your squad, promote and level them up if they are able to survive combat, and add classes and loadouts to each one. The funny thing is that you start getting attached to your squad when you successfully make them survive each alien attack, so when you lose one of them in battle you will literally feel horrible afterwards. I remember the first time I lost a soldier that I had with me throughout the start of the game, I felt like I failed the mission before I even completed any objectives.

X-COM also boasts a huge base-building, research mechanic that allows for cool upgrades and new units/gear to become unlocked that also adds to the whole strategy and play style elements. The gameplay can be easily grasped by any player after the tutorials and the game stays challenging while also staying fun in the process. The core gameplay is fast with camera angles that keep the player into the action and on the edge of their seats. Controlling the game is a cinch thanks to great keyboard and mouse controls that are very easy to use and offer a wide array of commands that allow the player to make the best decisions possible. The PC version of the game runs very well on many types of system builds and includes very little bugs out of the box. Multiple difficulties exist as well for players new to the genre and veterans of the X-COM series so no one should feel left out here.

I am a huge sucker for science fiction stories and alien invasions, so the premise alone is what caught my attention with X-COM: Enemy Unknown. The fact that Fireaxis can take a gamer who cannot enjoy turn-based strategy games and make a fan out of them is a huge achievement in my eyes. X-COM sports a cool story, awesome gameplay mechanics with great tools to ease the player into them, and very deep upgrade and squad building tools that allows the player to tailor the game to their liking. The game also includes an awesome multiplayer suite for players to go head to head against other players, but honestly I have very little interest in this personally. Even if you cannot appreciate this genre, I highly advise everyone to give the game a fair shot. This is why X-COM: Enemy Unknown is my #9 favorite game of 2012.

Wasting Time: Week of January 23rd

Anyone who has taken a peek at my Backloggery page will easily see how massive my backlog really is. Adding any new major games to my collection isn't a great idea right now due to how many games I have to still finish. The issue here is that this week the highly anticipated PS3 exclusive, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, released with universal praise. It seems that Ni No Kuni was released in low numbers and has been flying off of store shelves fairly quickly, so I fought temptation to buy yet another big game and easily lost due to the high demand and the anticipation I've had for this game. So this week I have quite a bit on my plate. Lets take a look:

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

The current generation of consoles have not been too kind to the JRPG. Many that have released have failed both critically and commercially and many others have been massive disappointments. The only two to have seem to make any sort of impression on gamers this generation are Lost Odyssey (an Xbox 360 exclusive by Final Fantasy co-creator Hironobu Sakaguchi) and the Wii-exclusive Xenoblade Chronicles that US gamers literally fought to have ported over state-side. With the current generation about to fizzle out, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch comes out to give the JRPG genre one last hurrah and attempt to give fans a game worthy of such classics as Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest VIII.

Ni No Kuni is a Level-5 (Dark Cloud series, Dragon Quest VIII) developed JRPG that partners with Japanese animation mega-giants Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) to create a new yet classic styled JRPG to the Playstation 3. The game has achieve high praise among gaming critics and fans alike. It seems as if Ni No Kuni may be one of the best, if not the best, JRPGs in recent memory. I could not pass up on the opportunity to play this game so I picked it up and put about two hours into it so far. I have not played enough to really determine how good it is, but at the moment everything seems pretty fantastic. The visuals are gorgeous, the story and characters thus far are very strong, and the music is fantastic. Ni No Kuni has quite possibly one of the best overworld themes I have heard since Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. My only concern is that the battle system will wear out it's welcome and rely too much on grinding in order to proceed further into the game. I fully plan on making this game my primary game to play and will report how the game fairs as I dive deeper into it.

Persona 4 Arena

In anticipation of my arcade stick to arrive, I have been grabbing cheap fighting games as I come across them. Persona 4 Arena has gotten a lot of praise last year for being a very unique and fun fighting game and I had the opportunity to grab it very cheap recently. I popped the game in and played through the tutorial (which was more helpful than most fighting game tutorials) and a bit of the arcade mode. The game's fighting mechanics are fairly unique and require a lot of button combinations to memorize, many of them requiring three simultaneous button presses on the face buttons. Seeing as many of the counter and evasive moves require these intricate button presses, I am going to wait until my arcade stick arrives before I really learn how to play it. That being said, the game has some gorgeous 2D graphics and some impressive animations. The game has quite a deep story for a fighting game and takes place after the events of Persona 4 (which I'm currently still playing so I do not understand a lot of it). The game has found it's place into many gaming tournaments lately and the online play is suppose to be strong, so hopefully the online community stays afloat.

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

I have not played the previous editions of the X-COM series, and I typically do not play turn-based strategy RPGs due to not quite grasping the concept of them very well. X-COM: Enemy Unknown, the revival of the classic series, has found it's way on many "game of the year" lists and the reviews have been fantastic across the board. I gave the demo a spin and was quite impressed with what I played. I was able to snag a copy of the PC version cheaply so I started playing the game over the weekend and can easily see what the fuss is about. X-COM simply eases the player into the gameplay mechanics and gives you all the necessary information to properly play and understand the game before the game stops holding the player's hand. The missions are fast and fun, which makes the game a fantastic choice when you want something to play in small bursts. I'm only four or five missions into the game but I can honestly say I may have finally found a game in this genre even I can love. We'll see how it goes as I play more.

That is all this week!

Renewing My Love of Fighting Games

One gaming genre that I have always liked and respected but do not put a lot of time into or purchase a lot of games from is the fighting game genre. When I was a kid I loved playing Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat on my Sega Genesis. I remember when Super Street Fighter 2 released on the Genesis I was so excited to get my hands on that game. Even though I didn’t play fighting games with my friends often, I loved playing against the CPU regardless. Where did my love go for the genre? How come I didn’t get excited over the Street Fighter Alpha series, or even Street Fighter IV for that matter? My excitement over fighting games simply died after the 16-bit era and I’ve only had a very mild interest in the genre since then.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have definitely played and enjoyed fighting games since then. I remember playing quite a bit of Tekken 3 on the original Playstation, the Soul Calibur series (which is probably my favorite modern fighting game series) starting on the Dreamcast, Dead or Alive 4 on the Xbox 360 and most recently the new Mortal Kombat -- which happened to land a spot on my Top Ten list in 2011. Most of my interest in the genre lies in 3D fighters, since 2D fighters like King of the Fighters, BlazBlue, and Guilty Gear really didn’t do anything for me. It was not until Super Street Fighter IV that I started to regain interest in 2D fighters and the genre as a whole. I have found myself recently watching live streams from professional competitions like EVO and SCR (Southern California Regionals) for fun and keeping an eye on professional players by seeing how they play.

To return to the original question, why have I lost the love for the genre? I think part of it stems from not having anyone to really play and practice with. Playing a fighting game online is a frustrating chore since the majority of players are too highly skilled to have fun playing against and latency issues plague many online fighters. The biggest reason behind my lost love for the genre is the lack of an arcade stick. Even though some professional players use gamepads, it isn’t very many and using the standard controller is a pretty big handicap for many. Pulling off intricate combos and moves are much easier when using an arcade stick, but a good stick can range anywhere from $200 to $300 if you want one that performs well right out of the box. Some players will buy cheap arcade sticks and mod them using high-end parts from companies like Sanwa and Seimitsu. Due to the pricey nature of these controllers, I sort of ignored most fighting games since I know the cost of getting good at them can be pricey.

Watching these professional fighting game tournaments has inspired me to get back into the fighting game genre. I would love to finally be able to practice and become good at some of these games, like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 or Super Street Fighter IV, so I took the liberty of finally jumping the gun on an arcade stick purchase. I faught with myself all weekend on whether or not spending the money on an arcade stick would be a worthy investment, but now is probably the perfect time to splurge on one and Mad Catz (one of the top manufacturers) will typically have big sales on arcade sticks during major professional tournaments. Since SCR 2013 occurred this weekend, Mad Catz indeed had a nice sale on fancy arcade sticks, so I purchased the Street Fighter X Tekken Xbox 360 Tournament Fight Stick (originally $160) for only $100. I figured since it will be awhile until there are major sales like this again, now was the time to go for it. I am now patiently waiting for the arcade stick to arrive hopefully sometime this week so I can start learning how to properly use it.

Now that I am an arcade stick owner, I plan on picking up a few new fighting games to test it out. I recently picked up Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition for the PC on the cheap (thanks GreenManGaming.com) and I plan on grabbing Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Persona 4 Arena, and Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 soon. Wish me luck, and if anybody needs a sparring buddy let me know!

Backloggery Collection Complete

I have finally finished my Backloggery collection via Backloggery.com. A link resides on the right side of the page under my updates if anyone is interested in checking it out. I have some quick statistics to share.

- Currently own 441 games across 21 different platforms.
- I have only beaten 22% of my games. Yeah, that sounds about right.
- I own the most games on the PC (142), followed by the Atari 2600 (35) and the PS2 (32).
- I've beaten more games on the PC (26), followed by the Xbox (16) and the Xbox 360 (10).
-According to the statistics, I REALLY need to get on finishing PS2 and original Playstation games!

Gaming Hauls: January 19th, 2013.

Went out on another classic game hunt today and scored quite a few PS2 games I've been wanting to add to my collection for pretty cheap. Also grabbed an Xbox 360 game that I really need to revisit and finish. Here is what I snatched up:

Devil May Cry (original casing, used) - $2.00
Maximo: Ghosts to Glory (used) - $2.00
Onimusha: Warlords (used) - $2.00
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny (used) - $3.00
Kingdom Hearts (GH version, new) - $12.00
Kingdom Hearts II (GH version, new) - $12.00
Lost Odyssey (used) - $10.00

Total spent: $53

I played through the original Onimusha on the Xbox, which was actually one of the games I bought alongside my Xbox when I bought it. I loved that game to death and been meaning to revisit it, so I grabbed the PS2 version on the cheap. I never got a chance to finish any of the other games in the series (even though I've played them all except for the final one) so I grabbed Onimusha 2 as well and will look out for the other two next time I go on a game hunt. The Devil May Cry series is one I've always wanted to get into, but just never could due to the difficulty of the series. I figured I would try again with the original. Kingdom Hearts I could never get into and I have not played the sequel, but I figured I would give the series another shot. Maximo is a game I dabbled in when it was first released but I didn't get too deep into it, so I've been wanting to revisit it as well. Lost Odyssey I rented during it's release and loved what I played but never got around to purchasing a copy, so now is the time to hop on it. Thanks it for now!

Gaming Collection Project

Have you seen those crazy guys on the internet with the whole rooms filled top to bottom with video games? The folks who’s gaming collections are thousands? Well yeah, that is basically what I inspire to do. I currently have my nerdy man-cave setup as a video gaming mecca, complete with framed gaming art covering the walls and gaming memorabilia filling bookcases and shelving units. My personal video game collection has grown greatly, but it is nowhere near where I want it to be. I find myself every few weeks or so scouring thrift stores, flea markets, and second-hand gaming shops looking for treasures to add to my collection. I have recently decided to categorize, catalog, and database my gaming collection using a website called Backloggery and an iPhone app created by a NeoGAF user (Kevin Gudgeirsson, AKA Avengedsd) named Game Vault to keep track of my collection.

I will post the completed Backloggery database as soon as I am finished, which I will use to show viewer my current collection, progress, and gaming trends associated with my collection. My collection primarily focuses on retail physical copies, but games that are only available in digital form (like Steam games) I will add for progress purposes. I plan on hopefully posting the completed collection very soon. I will also blog about my current finds and purchases as well.

This should be a fun project and I’m hoping to hit my goal of 500 physical games this year. I better start stockpiling up on spare bookcases!