So Much Hype

Destiny releases tomorrow and out of some awesome twist of fate, it would appear as if I have the entire day off. I will note however that I did not go out of my way to plan this, but I think the universe is telling me to blow my entire day playing Destiny.

My anticipation for Destiny is pretty immense and to be honest, I'm not sure I can even remember the last time I was this hyped for a game. I was jonesing pretty hard for the release of the PS4, but that is a large event, can you even compare a console release to a game release anyway? I'm not sure it would be fair.

I think if I go back far enough, I was really excited for the release of Kingdom Hearts 2. I was in love with the first one, and from everything I was hearing off the internet, the second one was going to be so much better. Now this was also way back in the PS2 days and thinking about it, was I ever that excited for any PS3 game? I'm not entirely sure I was. There had to be one game, but easily nowhere near the level of excitement I have currently for Destiny.

Maybe the last console generation just sucked, I don't know. We only got one new numbered Final Fantasy, and other JRPGs generally remained stagnant; we also saw an over abundance of shooters released, some even sequentially like a sports game. Sure BioShock was a great series and Assassin's Creed is pretty fun, lest we forget about Skyrimwhich was also amazing. Those games, and many more, of the era were great, but they weren't show stoppers. We need more games like the first Halo to release, and heck even when Final Fantasy X hit everyone was going nuts. What happened to that feeling? Where did it go?

Looking back I think I've played more of my PS4 over the last 10 months than I played my PS3 over the last 3-4 years. Part of that might be the fault of indie games on Steam and my growth as a PC gamer, then there was also that ever-infuriating League of Legends game, but I digress...I can't wait for tomorrow, I just want to play Destiny.

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My Top Upcoming Games‏

To be honest, I still haven’t been giving the PS4 much love. With the exception of the free games I get monthly on Playstation Plus, I’ve barely bought anything besides a few downloadable games.

I feel like all of that’s gonna change very soon. Here’s a few games coming to PS4/Xbox One that I can’t wait for.

Games Tell Tales

I’m probably the only gamer on the face of this earth who has not played The Walking Dead: Season 1. Regardless, the game’s available for pre-order on Amazon right now for $29. Yeah, that’s probably very steep for many PC gamers, but again, I really wanna put my PS4 to good use, so why not with an already critically acclaimed game?

Speaking of Telltale Games, there’s also The Wolf Among Us, for $30. I won’t go into much detail on this one because people are gonna start thinking that I’m a Telltale Games fanboy.

Cry Far

Okay, moving on to games that aren’t already out yet. Far Cry 4 just looks impressive. I already preordered it for $50 tax-in, to sweeten the deal. Having missed Far Cry 3, I feel like I’ll be even more amazed with the game. The villain, Neymar Jr Pagan Min, will probably be the main draw to the story. With a planned release of November 18^th, I’m just gonna have to sit here and wait.

Knighting The Ark

I’m gonna be honest here and say that I have not put much time into the Batman franchise last generation. I ended up getting bored with both games, and they sat on the sidelines while I paid more attention to other games. This time around, I vow to give Rocksteady and their franchise the attention it deserves with Batman: Arkham Knight. Again, I already preordered it, and with a slated release of 2015 (sigh) I’ll be waiting quite some time but I’m pretty sure it’ll be worth it.

Honorable mentions:

- Destiny. Everyone wants it, but I want to wait and see what gamers say about it once it’s released.

- Hotline Miami 2. I’m afraid that it’ll play it too safe…It’ll probably be a day one purchase anyway.

- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. I’ve avoided the franchise since the first Black Ops, but Kevin Spacey.

- Kingdom Hearts III & Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Um, well, nobody knows much about either anyway, but these 2 franchises pretty much made me buy their respective consoles (PS2/PS3).

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My Most Anticipated PS4 Games This Fall

The upcoming holiday season seemed to have a ton of high profile games to be released. I was super hyped for The Order 1886 because of its exclusivity and phenomenal graphics. I had similar interest in Batman: Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3, but all 3 games have since been delayed until 2015. 

You might be asking yourself what even remains? Well fortunately there is still a plethora of games on my radar! These are my top 5 most anticipated games for the 2014 holiday season:

5. Assassin's Creed Unity

Some of you may be surprised that this game has made my list, mainly due to the fact that I never really sunk much time into any of the other games in the series...at least that is until AC Black Flag came out. Hailed as one of the best AC games, it's hard not to like Black Flag—especially for me since I have an unconditional love for pirates.

Unity is set during the French Revolution, and along with having its usual single-player affair, it will also include co-op for up to 4 players. Not every mission will be accessible through multiplayer, but a good amount of them should be. The combat system is also supposed to have been reworked a bit, taking a larger influence from fencing (which is cool because I used to fence). But who are they kidding: how much does Ubisoft ever really change the combat in AC games?

4. Far Cry 4

God damn it Ubisoft, you and your massive open-world games. I never played Far Cry 3, but damn if Blood Dragon (along with the second Far Cry) weren't amazing. The main reason for me being intrigued by Far Cry 4 is its change in setting. Ubisoft have opted for the Himalayas this time around instead of their usual jungle-themed maps. Because of the newly acquired verticality in the map they have added a grappling hook to the player's repertoire along with re-introducing the squirrel suit; I think this is really going to mess with the gameplay.

On top of this, Ubisoft even announced at E3 this year that Far Cry 4 (at least on the PS4) will incorporate an online 2-player co-op in which one of the users doesn't even need to own the game. I almost feel like this is impossible haha; it certainly is unprecedented—Mario Kart on the 3DS was able to achieve this locally only, not online.

3. Lords of the Fallen

A game many of you might not even know about, Lords of the Fallen creeped in during E3 and is getting shown off a bit more at the San Diego Comic-con, which is taking place as I write this. It's a hard-as-balls action-RPG that sort of looks like a cross between Demon's souls and this obscure PS3 game called Viking: Battle for Asgard. If you look at a video the combat appears to be bit sluggish, but not in a bad way, these are some burley dudes.

Lords of the Fallen is being developed by this German Studio Deck13 interactive. And though they have developed a number of games, I have never heard of any of them. This looks like it might be their biggest endeavor yet, and it does look quite good, so let's hope they can pull it off so we see more from them in the future. The only reason I placed this game higher than both Ubisoft titles is because it's new and interesting. I just hope it lives up to what my opinion of it already is.

2. Guilty Gear Xrd

I have talked about Guilty Gear Xrd many times before so it is no surprise that it is on my list. It's been many years since we received a Guilty Gear game—sure we got BlazBlue, but it just isn't the same—and I for one am glad they are returning to it. My only hope is that it doesn't get delayed till next year. As it stands right now, the game is expected to launch this year on PS3 and PS4 but has yet to receive a concrete release date. Cross your fingers folks!

1. Destiny

What do you get when you mix Borderlands with Halo? You get Destiny. Prior to this moment, I really hadn't put much stock into Destiny. I don't know why. I was never a big Halo fan. The series was fun, don't get me wrong. I just felt like the story was the same rehashed thing over and over again, and unlike the AC series who at least changed the setting up every time, Halo just always appeared the same.

This past week saw the Beta for Destiny open up to all who had the time to play. I didn't get a chance to try it out, but I know Brandon tried the Alpha a little while ago and really enjoyed himself. Because of the Beta there has been so much media coverage for Destiny and all of it looks quite amazing. I can hardly wait the 40 some odd days it will take to release. Not to mention one of my favorite genres is sci-fi and the fact that this game is rooted in our own solar system really helps ground the lore into something I can get behind.

Final Thoughts

So that's my list, adjusted for the delays. I'm sure I made a grave error by omitting your favourite game, so what did I miss? What is your most anticipated game for the holiday season? 

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Persona Q: Looking Back At My Memories Of The Persona Series

I am incredibly stoked for upcoming dungeon crawler Persona Q: Shadow of Labyrinth a 3DS exclusive released on June 5th 2014 in Japan, and coming out in North America on November 25th 2014 as well as in Europe on November 28th 2014. It may appear outwardly as another JRPG to some, but I have a great deal of respect for the often innovative gameplay additions brought to the Shin Megami Tensei series, of which Persona belongs to.

However, given that Persona Q itself has yet to be released, I figured I would explore my time with Persona 3, which represented a radical change from previous Persona titles, and which captivated me for all of its 100 hours of gameplay.

Three’s A Crowd

My time with Persona 3 was long-winded, yet enjoyable overall. At its core, Persona 3 is a dungeon crawler, which means that the majority of the player’s time is spent aimlessly shuffling through long corridors, fighting enemies of varying forms, and then eventually beating a boss. This cycle livened by the occasional story bits which help motivate the player to continue the gameplay loop all over again. And as drab as this all sounds, I enjoyed a great deal of the time that I spent with Persona 3.

From the social links that the player formed with his classmates, to the rhythmic passing of the seasons, Persona 3’s very essence was shaped by repetition. Which I suppose is at the core of most any RPG; though Persona 3 seemed to wear this design troupe proudly, walking with just enough confidence and swagger to posture this repetition nicely.

That said, as with most RPGs, I ended up losing steam with Persona 3. I recall it being around the 80 hour mark. I simply could not force myself to play the game any longer. And so I quit. For 3 months. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to pick up the game for a second time, but instead of restarting, I was drawn to seeing the game through to its end.

Having been away from the game’s story for 3 months, I was doing myself very little favour by jumping back into Persona 3. But when I lost sight of who anyone was, and why they were all fighting the good fight, I began the simple act of allowing myself to become re-involved in the game’s repetition. And like a slipstream, the social links, changing seasons, and dungeon crawling, in their collective familiarity, glided me forward for the next 20 hours; at which point, having beat the final boss, I felt relief.  The cycle was broken, and I managed to finish the game while admiring the craftsmanship that went into shaping what made it a great video game, instead of what made it a great story.

Final Thoughts

And really, isn’t that why we play RPGs? Sure, the writing, localization (if applicable), voice work and storytelling are all important. And sure, I actually hold a well-written story in a video game in high regards. But I’ve also come to appreciate the beauty found in the careful and thoughtful repetition unique to RPGs. Does anyone else view RPGs in this manner, or do you typically prefer an RPG’s story to its gameplay?

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All Aboard

E3 has come and gone and the one thing each video game conference has in common with one another is they all sell tickets for the hype train. The hype train is the metaphorical manifestation of everyone's joint excitement for a game; it can lead gamers on a fanciful journey often towards wondrous games. Unfortunately each individual game has their own hype train and they don't all lead to the Promised Land.

Hype can be a tricky thing to handle—as a developer, you want to breathe excitement into your fans and develop anticipation for your game, but at the same time going too far can bring on a fan's ire if you can't deliver. The only alternative is to release the game the day you announce it haha but I doubt that would be a trend that ever caught on outside of announcing surprise DLC *cough* Dead Rising 3 *cough*.

Crash And Burn

This year saw a resurgence in game trailers that were (or at least appeared to be) mostly CGI. Over the last number of years I feel as though the industry moved away from this sort of thing and developers were trying to represent all their work in-game. As it appears to be the case (like it was last generation) it looks as though when new systems come out, the initial trailers tend to be more like target renders for what they want their game to look like in the future.

You don't have to look very hard to find an example from the last generation. When Sony first showed off Guerrilla games' Killzone 2 for the PS3, the graphics were out of this world and not what most people expected. Come release, the game obviously failed to live up to the target render...not to say the game looked bad (it was gorgeous), but it was also nowhere near the level of quality that the initial trailer had strived for. The exact same thing happened to Evolution Studios' MotorStorm.

This year was sort of a mixed bag: Some trailers can in no way be in-game and if they are, consider my mind blown because it looked absolutely ridiculous. Just look at the trailer for the newly announced Bloodborne as an example:

There is no way that is in game; I'm sorry, I just can't believe it. Now they never explicitly say it was supposed to be in-game, and the trailer was pretty sick, but this just has viewers flocking to the hype train in droves—and sure, maybe the ride has a few rub downs to keep you entertained along the way, but the final destination is completely unknown.

That being said, Bloodborne has a very low risk of being bad. Developer From Software has a pretty good track record with this style of game—providing a solid action experience with amazing, anxiety inducing, atmosphere. Bloodborne is another spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, much in the same way Dark Souls was. All three separate entities are directed by the same Hidetaka Miyazaki. But unlike the previous two entries, which were medieval in setting, Bloodborne takes on the Victorian era with its anxiety inducing action gameplay.

One thing potential passengers should be extra weary of is boarding the hype train of a new Intellectual Property (IP). Depending on what type of trailer they get—CGI, in-game, teaser, or actual gameplay—getting caught up in the hype can lead to bitter disappointment. As far as new IPs go, this year there weren't too many: Scalebound, Splatoon and the previously mentioned Bloodborne (which is arguable since it is a spiritual successor)...there were a few more, but these are the ones I took notice of personally. 

Drop Me Off At The Top

Hype isn't always a misleading she-devil: For the most part, when a sequel gets revealed you know what you're getting yourself into, especially when that sequel is Uncharted 4!

Just look at those graphics! Also, this is supposed to be in-game, which I feel like I can believe. The only issue I have with this trailer is that it's just a teaser...other than getting your toes a little wet, not much substance is shown. It's easy to get caught up in the hype with a game like Uncharted 4; Naughty Dog is a studio that has proven time and time again that it is a leader in the industry. Practically everything they make is gold and the expectation is that Uncharted 4 will be no different.

Unfortunately it is easier to say, than to do and despite my best efforts, I bought my ticket, took my seat and I'm fully aboard the hype train...but what about you? Did you see anything at E3 that peeked your interest? New or old, let me know in the comments below.

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