GMG Santa Cracks Me Up

When it comes to official third party Steam key online retailers out there, Green Man Gaming is a frequent choice for me. They tend to offer deeper discounts on anything that Steam has to offer even during special sales events. All of these companies always have some kooky themes going on and this holiday season, GMG recruits the help of a really funky Santa as the event's mascot.

These poses. The curious hair color change will be a mystery for the ages.

Unconventional Santas are cool and this one is really something else. Judging from the far left picture alone, you know that this Santa had too much eggnog. I was laughing so hard as I was browsing all the cool deals happening on the website. Weird is good and this time, it's really strange but it works.

Spirit of Christmas: An Epic Fail

I don't have a problem that Epic Games has its own digital storefront since its inception. I also don't have a problem with them offering a lot of cash to score exclusives for their platform - the only party you can blame there if your favorite games are not coming to your preferred game client would the developers and/or the publishers. Epic didn't do anything wrong there. Epic is just trying to be competitive. You can however blame Epic for missing the first free game on offer for their 12 Days of Free Games promotion that took off yesterday 12/19/2019 alongside their own Holiday Sale 2019 that is running concurrently with Steam's Winter Sale 2019.

The announcement for this event just arrived on my email this afternoon and imagine my horror when I realized that it is a day late and the first game they had on offer was Into the Breach - a strategy game that is on my Steam wishlist! I am quite upset about this. It would have saved me some cash by claiming the Epic Store version of the game. And no Epic. I may support what you are doing with the digital game storefront industry but that doesn't mean that I will keep your game client running on my PC 24/7 like I do with Steam just so that I won't miss any future promotions. I only use you when I need you. I know that Epic usually offers a free game on Thursday every week but I didn't know that this time, I needed to claim it immediately. I was too busy browsing discounted games on Steam yesterday. Someone at marketing is sleeping on the job...

This email should have arrived, I don't know... Last week?

Update Note: 03/24/2020 - It looks like Epic did learn their lesson from this mishap. They sent out an email today to announce their upcoming spring sale. Good job!

$1 Digital Rental Is A-OK

I have been mulling over this one for a while and I have finally made the jump. I have tried subscribing to GameFly a couple of times in the past with unfavorable results. I am a mood-dependent gamer. The games I play at any given point are as varied as my mood swings. It's almost impossible for me to focus on one game to play and see through it until the end unless the game happens to be incredibly good. This is why renting a game just doesn't work for me. But for $1? Just $1 to access the recently released The Outer Worlds? That's too good of a bargain to pass. Microsoft is gambling big here with their X-Box Game Pass for PC, which is currently in beta, by offering new subscribers a $1 first month introductory price and $4.99 promotional price after if one opted to continue with the service. Not only that, for them to include The Outer Worlds into the lineup plus the promise of all internal studio games will launch on the rental service? I was crazy to wait this long to take this for a test run.

The service includes plenty of games I already have, like Dishonored 2.

Would I be keeping the service after the first month? Probably not due to the dilemma I presented earlier. I rather just purchase games and then play them at my leisure without the fear of losing access to them because I don't want to pay a monthly fee. But there are several games on the current list that I am interested in, Gears 5 for example. It will be interesting to see how I am going to manage all this, especially after noticing that The Outer Worlds may not be Obsidian Entertainment's best offering, so far anyway, which means that it will be a struggle to stick with the game. Even if I decided to extend this subscription to a second month, the low price point makes that a non-issue. Microsoft and its competitors have been trying to make the digital rental as a major part of their business. Microsoft may not be able to keep someone like me hooked but I am sure a lot of people may find their offerings irresistible.

Collector's Edition 2020: We Have Arrived!

Remember the $99.99 Collector's Edition of Tales of Xillia? That was cute right? Dangerous... but cute. Then, there was the $119.99 Collector's Edition of Dark Souls II. We knew then things were getting creepy. Then, came the $129.99 Collector's Edition of Tales of Xillia 2. Yeah, it was all over after that. I was too exhausted to cover other awful, overpriced packages that came after, including the most recent offering in the form of the horrific Fallout 76 Power Armor Edition. Can you believe that people actually paid $200 for that?

Well, brace yourself for the new level of horror in the darkest depth of ridiculousness. You would think that such an overpriced item would accompany a major AAA gaming release but no. This new low is brought to you by the upcoming - take a deep breath - SpongeBob video game! And it's not even a new game, it's another remake in the form of SpongeBob Squarepants: The Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated! The F.U.N. Edition a.k.a. the Collector's Edition will retail at $299.99. Yes, $299.99. It includes the game, 3 figurines, key chains, stickers, lithographs and uh... a pair of socks. I get it, SpongeBoB has a huge following and I can understand why. I have watched some of the shows and it's one of those brilliant creations that's able to be intriguing to both children and adults with its wacky, crudely nonsensical humor. But $299.99? Oh yes, they went there. They know that there are plenty of people who would purchase this, judging from the fact that many gamers still happily pay money to get online multiplayer access and still go goo goo gaga over new consoles.

The fun of spending $300.

PS5: Console Gonna Console

So it has been recently confirmed that the PlayStation 5 is indeed a real thing and apparently there has been a lot of Mark Cerny quotes making rounds on the Internet, touting all the greatness that will be unleashed once the system is out supposedly sometime in 2020 - please don't get me started on that guy. You know that as soon as the PS5 hits the market, he will begin asking developers what they want from a PlayStation 6. You would think that with the success of their digital marketplace on the both PS3 and 4, plus their roll out of PlayStation Now, they would be smarter with their strategy leading into the future. But no. Do we really need an expensive new console at this point? We really don't. Consoles should start heading towards extinction and replaced with gaming services that can cater to multiple devices that are 1) readily upgradable, like the the Personal Computer or 2) readily accessible, like perhaps mobile devices AND current consoles - what a concept eh? You see, the problem with releasing new consoles is that they becomes obsolete as soon as they are released in today's fast-paced, ever advancing technological world.

4 PlayStations are apparently not enough.

Though many are skeptical, this is the reason why I applaud Google's Stadia. It's a bold fuck you to the console and hardware-based gaming industry. Please, don't tell me that it would not work. Remember OnLive? I used to beta test that and it worked great - there was no lag playing games off a server on the Internet. And that was like what? About 10 years ago? Sony liked it so much that they bought the company. Internet is way faster today so there is no reason for Stadia to fail. The only reason why I personally didn't subscribe to OnLive back then was because the graphics were mostly on medium settings for the more graphically intense games but that shouldn't be a problem anymore and Google even promised 4K for those with proper connection speed.

Microsoft is also guilty of this whole console conundrum because they should really work on their Windows Store to deliver the gaming goods. At least they have realized that they can easily profit from the PC market when they announced back in May that all of the games made by their internal studio will always see a PC release on Steam. But the real remedy here to move forward for the console side is - to abandon consoles altogether. Not to just throw them all into the fire, of course not, but the currently available, most recent consoles can extend their lives by implementing new exciting features, not by abandoning them altogether. Observe the following data from my Game Library:

PlayStation: 94

PlayStation 2: 470

PlayStation 3: 272

PlayStation 4: 78

PlayStation Portable: 111

PlayStation Vita: 34

It's sad isn't it? After the dramatic increase during the PS2 era, the amount of games I own for the following Sony systems dropped tremendously. What is the use of having access to something shiny and new that has less of what I want? I want games. More games! Less worry about the hardware, more focus on the games! This is why most of my games are on the PC these days - I have 4025 titles there as of today. With Steam recently announcing that they will allow offline multiplayer games to be played online via Remote Play, inspired by Nvidia Gamestream Co-op no doubt, is there really a reason to support new consoles coming out?  Excuse me, new consoles that now feature... SSD - oh brother - which is something that has been a PC staple for a while now and is not that earth-shattering, certainly not worth building a whole new console for? This new Steam feature is also free and doesn't require online play subscription like it normally would on the console side, which now includes Nintendo. Open your mind. Think. The console era has ended. Don't launch new consoles, launch new services. I don't mind installing a Nintendo or Sony client on my PC on top of Steam, Epic, Uplay, GoG, Origin, and the default Windows Store.

Steam Remote Play Together. Infinitely more exciting than any new console announcements.

1 Down, 5000+ to Go?

Well, this is surely a landmark event for my current state of gaming life - the state that celebrates my obsession with playing fast-paced, fast result games reminiscent of the early gaming era while pushing aside the one playthrough, long build-up style of game design that is so popular these days. It is funny however that quick payout games are making a resurgence with the battle royale and autochess genres dominating the gaming sphere but it's safe to say that the grandiose story heavy, progression heavy single playthrough games are still the mainstay in today's gaming market if the hype surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 is any indication. So what is the landmark event you ask? Well, I have reached the end of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc via Steam last night! This is all thanks to my recent commitment to focus on "completing" games instead of jumping around between them like a bunny, resulting in all of them being eventually abandoned. I don't even remember the last game that I fully completed... wait, maybe I do, I think it was Final Fantasy XIII several years ago.

Yup, that's an end credit!

As for the game itself, DTHH is a very interesting visual novel that halfway-through seems to have lost its strong, impactful initial direction. It's a copycat of the Phoenix Wright games but Capcom's popular detective visual novel series is truly superior in comparison. The tonal shift towards the climax is definitely rushed and nonsensical though thankfully, the ending is satisfactory enough. I am sure that the old me would have just abandoned this game when the shift happened but not this new version of yours truly! The game took 46 hours in total for my first playthrough and it looks like the hours can be extended even further for completionists. I am however going to skip these extra flourishes because I have so many games to get to! So, I don't know, maybe when I'm in my 60s I can come back to this game and complete all the student report cards and unlock all the monomono presents after I have fully visited all the other games in my absolutely huge, uncomfortably bloated Game Library?

Teamfight Tactics: No Thanks!

Riot Games' autochess variant, Teamfight Tactics, that had just entered open beta on Wednesday is without the doubt the most attractive and polished compared to the rest in this emerging new genre of quite lazy and very random faux-strategic "chess". I played the game for a bit and you know what? It's pretty darn fun! That is... until I was reminded why I left League of Legends to embrace Heroes of the Storm completely - the horribly toxic community, not to mention that HotS is just leagues better gameplay-wise in comparison. Sure, HotS has its share of nasty people but Blizzard is beyond brilliant to allow players to completely turn off all chat and pings. I learned recently that Riot Games also allowed at least for the pings to be muted - one still has to edit a config file to completely turn off chat in LoL for some reason, a feature that should be included in-game - but apparently, they have forgotten to enable this in TFT. After a couple of games, I was caught off-guard when suddenly, my screen got pinged to death during a match by a player who was silent during half the game because his team got beaten by me and suddenly had a string of good luck and started a great comeback. Every time he demolished my team to shreds, I would get the question mark pings all over my screen. Yeah, I was pretty much done at that point. Unprompted sore winners are the worst. Will they ever enable players to mute pings in TFT? I hope so but if not, the game is certainly not worth it when I don't have to deal with that abuse in Valve's Dota Underlords...

I just want to chill playing a game like this and not be exposed to childish behaviors.

Life Is Unthinkable When Death Is a Certainty

One of the benefits of being middle-age, at least for me, is that you get to think about life and death, a lot. Well, to be frank, I have been preoccupied with the inevitability of death as far back as I can remember. It wasn't so much of a fascination. It was more like a realization that fueled the decisions that I have made throughout my life. I recognized from an early age that there is an end to me and I should do everything in my power to prioritize myself so that I don't have any regrets before I expire. The difference now that I have lived 40+ years of my life is that there is a sense of creeping dread that I have not felt in the past whenever I think about my end. I suppose when I was younger, I knew - or perhaps I was hopeful - that there was at least some significant distance before I would eventually get there. That illusion is no longer present anymore.

On some mornings, I look like Hina from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

Trying Something New with the Wii U

Ah, exercise. Something that everyone should be doing and it is something that most people just don't do, myself included. The last time I maintained a fitness routine was back around 2015/2016 with the help of Nike+ Kinect Training for the X-Box 360. It was the most viscous training regiment out of all the video game exercise programs that I have tried up to that point but it was also apparently very effective. As I look at the pictures of myself from back then, it is obvious to me now that I looked a hell lot healthier than the way I look now.

The thing is, it has always been very hard to force oneself into embracing an exercise routine. I know that I need it but making it happen takes some convincing because my body knows that there is going to be a lot of pain involved. I have to cheat a little bit to get things going and that is the reason for me to recently pick up Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013 for the Wii U. I know, it's a very old "game" but it's new to me. Most importantly, having access to this new exercise program seems to help in motivating me to get going because I always like trying new things. As a matter of fact, I think that I am going to start using this tomorrow! It's bad enough that I am getting old. The last thing I want though is to be old and fat. Wish me luck!

Is it your shape? My shape? His shape?

Truck Simulator Battle

As someone who enjoys going through Steam's Discovery Queue whenever I get the chance to, I have seen a lot of horrible games. There are just too many. It's not unusual for me to go through the 10+ titles presented per review session with all of them marked "Ignore" or as Steam used to classy them, "Not Interested". At this point, I am estimating that only 15-20% of all games on Steam are probably worthy to be played and the rest are just pure crap. Every now and then, some of these games are so remarkably horrid, it's clear that the developers may not even be trying, like this one:

An easy way to name a game is to just add Extreme in front of the title.

The Truck Simulator series by SCS Software has been so successful, it spawns many inferior imitations such as this one. What makes Extreme Truck Simulator so over the top however is that pricing discount. Recently released on 02/15/2019, the game is introduced with a 1% discount off its $1.99 price as if it was going to push undecided people to buy the game. I have to hand it to the game's developer, A Nostru, however since ETS has a feature that is missing from SCS' flagship series:

Virtual hands steering the truck!

That's not extreme, it's just realistic! In SCS' truck simulator games, the trucks are driven by an invisible ghost so at least ETS got this part right.

Daddy Issues, Daddies Rated

Dream Daddy: A Daddy Dating Simulator for the Personal Computer is a strange game. You play as a single dad of an 18 year old girl who just recently moved to a cul-de-sac filled with other daddies that you can co-mingle with. Since you can choose your dead significant other as either a man or a woman, the game seems to be bit confused. From my first 3 hours of play, the game is portraying most of these daddies as straight and it seems cruel to tease a gay guy like me to spend time knowing these guys. The game seems to be more about fatherhood because the story is centered around your own father-daughter relationship - and hell yes, Amanda wouldn't have gotten away with dismissing me the way she does to the main daddy character - I think that this game was named incorrectly. On the surface level, I am not sure of the game's length, this isn't truly a game about gay dating. It's a game about fatherhood with some homo-erotic elements in it. But I suppose the marketing department thought that it wouldn't have sold well to be truthful about the actual game.

Despite the game's identity issue, Dream Daddy does contain some attractive looking cartoon daddies. In real life, I do find daddies sexy. I don't know, there is something about their maturity and toughness. Also, having kids is a sign that the guys are uh, virile? Those who are new to relationships though, heed my advise. Unless you absolutely can't find a guy with no kids, stay away from them. You don't want to learn the hard way as I did. Back to the game: since the developer honed in on the hot daddy factor to entice their target audience, let's treat these daddies that way by rating their attractiveness:

Mat: The Coffee Shop Daddy

I like guys with a stubble - I'd die for a chance to touch a 5 o'clock shadow - so that's certainly a plus for him. He looks kinda cute I guess. I am not a fan of long hair, it's just not masculine. He has an annoying sense of humor where he likes experimenting with puns. As an undergraduate, I always thought that a sexy guy can't be a funny guy. Later in life, I found that to be quite incorrect. But this guy? He is way overdoing it. And the puns are not even that clever.

Hotness Rating: 😍😍😒😒😒

Brian: The Beer Belly Bush Daddy

I am a stubble guy and he is way too bushy. He does have the potential to look very hot if he can shave that shit down. I am not deterred by that big round belly of his. Look, I don't mind a tight, muscular body with a six pack but there is nothing wrong with a pot belly as long as you don't look bloated everywhere. Seems like a nice guy, very friendly. Too much into his daughter though but I guess that's the curse of fatherhood. Also owns a dog.

Hotness Rating: 😍😍😍😒😒

Craig: The Sporty Daddy

For a smooth-faced motherfucker, he does look rather handsome. Very much into fitness... but very much into fatherhood with that little baby always strapped in front of his muscular bod. He used to be your fat college roommate so that additional tidbit of information made him somewhat hotter. But you know there is no way you can hook up with a guy this well put together so your dick immediately learns to just stay limp when he's around.

Hotness Rating: 😍😒😒😒😒

Damien: The Vampire Daddy

I can be a bit goth. I like wearing anything black. I also used to own black lipsticks. The funny thing is, I never consider goth guys sexy. So this guy immediately falls off the radar. He is very serious about the Victorian era but strangely shops at the game's version of a Hot Topic store. You know a true goth doesn't shop at freaking Hot Topic. Seems like a nice guy though. His son is more goth than he is. Also, he looks way too elf-ish feminine for me.

Hotness Rating: 😒😒😒😒😒

Hugo: The Nerdy Daddy?

It's obvious that the game's developer doesn't know how to make a proper nerdy but sexy guy. Hugo is your daughter's teacher. He's saying that your daughter hasn't been turning in her papers. That mustache made me threw up a bit in my mouth. Then, he also has a man bun, yuck! This character is definitely a mistake. He has a loser son but the only true loser is whoever playing this game and has to interact with this badly imagined failure of a character.

Hotness Rating: 😒😒😒😒😒

Joseph: The Preacher Daddy

A youth minister with a preppy look, wearing a pink polo shirt. Only in Dream Daddy! He's got too many kids and a drunk wife who likes to flirt at the local bar. During a backyard party, the couple was not very friendly with each other. The developer wants you to fall for this guy apparently with all of these mixed signals. He was the first to welcome you to the neighborhood. Another baby-faced but hot guy. I am not into blondes but I really don't mind Joseph at all...

Hotness Rating: 😍😍😍😒😒

Robert: The Gangster Daddy

Before playing the game, I saw this guy in a screenshot and immediately got turned on. He's so hot, I thought he would be the uh, hardest daddy to sleep with. Lo and behold, it was the opposite. Slept with him the first night I met him and I have slept with him... twice now? Yes, Robert is ridiculously handsome. Dark haired, stubbly and oh very rough, very strong. Also, very mysterious. He doesn't say much which adds to the curiosity. Kicking me out of the house after sex made me feel dirty but if that means I can come back, then shoo me out of your messy house every morning honey.

Hotness Rating: 😍😍😍😍😍

Even though the game blesses me with the thrill of chasing after Robert, why is it that I have a feeling this will all be for naught? Anyway, I do look forward to sticking with this one until completion. I am already cautious about the game though but I hope that it will be able to surprise me in the end.

FIRST IMPRESSION: 3 out of 5

Early Access: Playing with Fire

As I have expressed before, I do not like the Early Access program on Steam. Sure, there are many games that ended up being a total success through the program, Subnautica being the prime example, but you can't say the same for an overwhelming majority of them. Early Access is the silliest thing ever. Developers used to pay people to test their games and now it's the other way around. It also makes them lazy: they already got our precious cash so there is absolutely no reason for them to get the product out quickly or provide meaningful update in a timely manner to the games being developed. Since I have been on a survival game binge lately, I have been lax with my "completed game" requirement and gotten titles that are still in Early Access. Thankfully, most of them are very playable though some of are showing signs of developer malaise like this horror I saw in 7 Days to Die:

My character is so handsome... and so blurry.

I was playing this game with the highest possible settings and the textures on the character model was just... bad. The whole game is actually pretty ugly. And let's see, this game has been in Early Access since December of 2013? And it's still in alpha? I should have known better. Since I read a lot of good things about the game, I just couldn't help myself because it was cheap during the recent Lunar New Year Sale. Steam should place a limit on Early Access in which developers who took longer than a year in the program must offer a full refund to all paying customers while still allowing them to keep the games. Just like pornographic VR games that are now flooding the store ever since Valve started allowing such creative liberties on Steam, Early Access games are getting out of control. While the former is a victory in gaming freedom, even though I don't partake in them, Early Access games are starting to look like a scam. 7 Days to Die seems playable though despite the visual presentation and oh, despite the name, I did die on day one thanks to a nasty bug that kept teleporting me away from a settlement before I could reach it. That's Early Access for you.

Character Secret Revealed: Deckard

Have you ever wondered how Deckard Cain from the Diablo series, who also stars in Heroes of the Storm, would look under that forever unwashed robe he wears all the time? Not me but it seems like Blizzard is more than happy to fulfill many a secret fantasies about the old man with the recently released Deckard Pain skin for him in Heroes of the Storm:

Forever buff.

After all that travel in search for knowledge, you know that he's very fit under all that garment complete with bulging biceps that are just begging to be bitten and a six-pack. The real question now is this: Does he look super hot under all that facial hair? Perhaps we will get the answer to that when his next skin arrives...

Steam Wants Your $160

Since Monday, Steam has been having its Lunar New Year Sale that will last for a week. There are so many games on sale, like usual, and I have found plenty of good deals on my out of control wishlist. With this Chinese New Year themed event, you can accrue 100 tokens for every $1 spent for yourself or 111 tokens for every $1 spent as a gift. At first, you think that this may be a reasonable reward points exchange but then when you look at the items that you can spend your tokens on, it seems like Valve really, really wants you to spend your money... I mean, they always do but compared to previous sales event rewards, this one features goals that feel rather far-fetched and unobtainable.

The top 3 rewards are very costly. You can also spend tokens on new backgrounds and emotes.

You start off with a token amount based on your previous purchase before the event started plus a $5 discount for the first $30 spent but to get an additional $5 discount, they want you to spend $150! Oh my galaxy! And I thought getting that $5 gift card recently for buying $25 worth of frozen food at Target was a bad deal. It's clear here that the ultimate Premium Reward for this event is the Golden Profile and judging by its setup, this particular reward is going to be a yearly thing: You have to spend $40 just to unlock it until end of sale... Then you have to spend $120 to keep the golden profile for a year. I opted to spend my tokens on things that are permanent: the profile badge and the backgrounds plus emotes. This very specific amount of $160 for the Golden Profile combo is perhaps indicative of the average amount of money people spend during these Steam sales events because it wouldn't make any sense to price it so high if most people wouldn't be able to unlock it. I seriously think that people should avoid getting the Golden Profile at any tier level to discourage Valve from using timed features as rewards. If people are willing to spend money on that, what's next? It's a scary thought. Bad Valve... Your greed is showing.

2018 Gaming Analysis

2018 was a year of new beginnings. I didn't have a home until sometime in February and since then, it's been a struggle to find some stability in my life, both physically and emotionally. As of today, my new Game Room still doesn't feel complete. How I have forgotten the length of time it really takes for one to truly settle down and feel... content. I really miss that feeling. Now I haven't done this year in review thing for 3 years. Thus, there will be some changes in the format but I just want to look back and to find and celebrate the little sparks that happened last year in terms of my gaming life. Note: Most of the time, it takes a while before I get to the games that I inducted to my library so a game doesn't have to be released in 2018 for them to be considered memorable for the year.

TOTAL INDUCTIONS: 883

14.4% of Game Library total as of 02/06/2019

Okay, even I was shocked when I pulled up that number. That's a lot of freaking games. I could have sworn it would be less than a quarter of that but then I remember getting plenty of game series and huge bundles during the Steam sales so it makes a lot of sense: for example the Nancy Drew bundle that I got in December contained 20 titles! I can't help it, the cheaper games on Steam deserve some love too and I normally gravitate towards them when the bigger titles fail to deliver more than 60% discounts... Sometimes, I surprised people on Steam whenever I splurged but if you look closely at the games I selected, you can see the ridiculously cheap price tags attached to the majority of them.

FAVORITE GAME OF THE YEAR:

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Developer: Ubisoft

Induction Date: 12/24/2018

Platform: Personal Computer

For a continuation of a long running game series, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is nothing short of a miracle. They keep releasing a seemingly never ending amount of new entries, one after another, in short periods of time mind you and instead of delivering the same old thing, they surprisingly managed to actually create the ultimate AC experience with Odyssey. Everything about this game just works, from the main characters, to the Greek setting, to the open world setup. The more I play the game, the more it opens up and soon, I found myself buried in quests - there are just too many things for one person to do! I played it so much one day that I actually got sick of it because I had too much goodness! Yes, I had to pace myself with this one because there is always a goal, always an adventure just waiting for me every time I jump into the game. It's amazing to run around the huge game world and if you are like me, soak it all in without using the fast travel option! No, I haven't completed the game yet but 50+ hours of beauty and wonderment on top of the tight action and stealth sequences made this the most prominent, most satisfying game I played in 2018.

SURPRISE OF THE YEAR:

The Nintendo Switch

Nintendo disappointed me when they abandoned the Wii U so very quickly. I will never ever forgive them for that. I was certainly unimpressed by their new Switch. It's obviously made to cater those who want to game away from home? But then I noticed that they released a lot of Psikyo shoot-'em-ups for the system so I caved in. I love the Psikyo ports but my opinion about the system is still the same. It's a disappointing console/handheld hybrid. It worked great when I went for a little getaway vacation to Lake Tahoe but everything else about the system is mediocre. The Joy-Cons, despite the name, brought not an ounce of joy. And Nintendo wants to charge us more money to buy the proper Pro controller for the system? I just opted for a USB adapter and play the system using a DualShock 4... Couple with Nintendo's new pay to play online policy, I think they are heading down a very dark path. Just port more shmups alright?

LOWEST POINT OF THE YEAR:

God of War

Developer: Santa Monica Studio

Induction Date: 08/16/2018

Platform: PlayStation 4

Every single God of War game that came before it started with absolutely epic beginning stages, like the hydra attack in the first game or the battle with the Colossus of Rhodes in the second game. This one? Well, you row down a river with your son to get the funeral of your wife going. Cory Barlog, the game director who was responsible for the first two games has apparently lost his marbles. I always thought that the awfulness of God of War III can be blamed on him leaving the project. Now, I am not even sure about that anymore. This game is an example of over-parenthood ruining things. There are appropriate games where you can interject your love for your offspring but in a God of War game? And how did a game about Greek mythology turn into a Nordic fantasy? Was it because he married a Swede? It makes you think, does it not? I tried to keep playing the game but I am here to kick some arse, not to guide some brat. This could have been a glorious return, God of War: Ascension style. Instead, we get another misguided, wholly unnecessary reinvention, like those new Tomb Raider games. This isn't God of War... It's God of Waa-waa-waa!

How was your gaming experience in 2018?

What would be your choices for the 3 categories above? I'd love to know!

Dead Sharks, Dead Gamer

I have been on the hunt for the ultimate survival game ever since I started playing Conan Exiles on the Personal Computer about a month ago. I was so invested in that game - in single player of course - that when I finally died, I just stopped playing it because I had done so much stuff, a sudden step back felt like a crushing defeat. Yes, I do plan on going back because I thought the game was very engaging and it certainly wet my appetite for the genre. Yesterday, I started playing The Forest, also on PC, and wow, this game is so darn brutal I couldn't even finish building my first bloody tent before I died... twice now!

They were so hungry, they didn't even bother stripping me naked.

I have already played Stranded Deep as you recall, so the starting intro where the plane crashed seemed awfully familiar. Here, you crashed into an island instead of the middle of the ocean. I was disappointed however with the kid character aspect of the game. In the beginning, when you awoke from the crash, you saw one of the uh, hostile locals, kidnapping your kid. This is an immediate immersion breaker because well, I frankly hate kids, I don't want one ever, and developers are known to coddle kids. A note to all developers: please stop adding kids to save/protect just because you recently obtained one and think everyone should share your uh, joy? It made me stopped playing that latest God of War on the PlayStation 4... In a game that's rife with horror and violence, I sure hope that The Forest doesn't hold back when it comes to the kid because it would sharply contradict everything else this game seems to offer. I was able to find other passengers hanging upside down with their bellies sliced open and their intestines hanging out so when I find the kid, I am hoping for a horrific discovery. Thankfully, after the eye roller kid situation, the game saved itself by offering an atmospheric environment of uncertainty, terror, and desperation.

If all lives were equal, how come this brat got priority over everyone else on-board?

The first time around the plane landed close to the beach and I thought that it could be the location where I could set up camp... until I saw three dead sharks near the water. I wasn't even sure they were dead at first so I had to throw rocks at them. These are not your typical sand sharks either, they looked like great whites. Funny because just a few strokes away from the beach, there was a yacht. Surely, the best place to spend the night but there is no way I am jumping into the dark water - especially with these dead sharks littering the beach. Then, I went back into the forest to cut down some logs when I heard what sounded like a woman's cry. Like an idiot, I went looking for the source and found out that it was a hostile, so I brandish my ax to cut her down to pieces until I realized too late that she had her boyfriend with her. They knocked me out and took me to their camp and when I escaped because they were all missing - maybe they were holding some sacrificial ceremony on top of a hill somewhere with the kid as the main attraction, one would hope - I managed to find the same beach again but after collecting a bunch of stones off the sand, I looked up to see that same couple creeping up towards me. I stood between the dead sharks hoping that they would work as some kind of cannibal-repellent but nope. Since I was badly hurt from the previous encounter, it didn't take them long to kill me off.

Dead sharks in cult-like placement. Very promising.

The second go saw an even more pathetic attempt at survival. The plane landed quite far from the beach but because I was so scared to venture through the forest, I found a cliff and followed its edge until I found the same beach. This time, I walked alongside the beach until I found a very secluded area under a rocky cliff that formed a little underpass and started to set up camp there. Because I spent too much time crawling to get to my destination, it started to get dark before I could start chopping some wood. Suddenly, the screen got dark and I started to freeze and the next thing you know, I quit the game. I never quit a game until its over, even when I got thrown into the ocean defenseless in Stranded Deep, but this was too horrific for me. I wasn't ready to start freezing to death and get jumped by hungry cannibals. I surely did not want to accidentally get into the water in a panic to then be attacked by a great white. I love this game, but it's pretty darn scary. The brilliance of The Forest is that seemingly in this early phase, there is no place where you can hide from danger, unlike the other survival games I have played. Subnautica is also quite a traumatic game for me because everything takes place in the open sea but when I got really scared, I could always just hide in my impenetrable little floating pod. Here, I feel exposed at all times. Despite the high fear factor, I have already started my third try and this time, I am forcing myself to build that save spot immediately come hell or high water without being too picky about the location. Thankfully, I found that same bad luck beach close by! The good news? The "close your eyes" method actually worked to keep me calm and collected while I was chopping down trees. But I am not sure how well that's going to help when the hostiles start sneaking up on me mid-chop...

What you can't see can lead to a fallen tree!

FIRST IMPRESSION: 5 out of 5

When Stranded Deep, Just Close Your Eyes

I have deathly fear of open water. Shadow of the Colossus on the PlayStation 2 had moments that nearly killed me, and though I endured about 7 hours of suffocating aquatic hell in Subnautica on the Personal Computer, an encounter with a deep sea creature had scarred me so much in that game that I had to quit playing - it's a great game though if you can stomach it. Now, we can add Stranded Deep, a game that is still in Early Access on Steam for... 3 years - oh lord - into my list of scariest experiences of my gaming life.

Basically, Stranded Deep is a survival game that places you in an open world where you have to survive its harsh environments by building stuff and keeping yourself fed. Where Stranded Deep is unique is the fact that the game takes place on an ocean map scattered with small islands and yes, there is more ocean that there are lands. What I am dreadful to learn is that the game slowly forces you to venture into the open sea to travel between these islands because there is never enough resources in each of them and if you are brave enough, dive deep into the sea surrounding these islands to scavenge rarer materials from old forgotten wreckage and debris. Apparently, there were plenty of air and water disasters that have occurred at this location.

Things are so peaceful on land.

So I was in the middle of building a small wooden raft because the emergency raft that the game gave me to start with drifted into the seas when I left it in the shallow water in the middle of a rainstorm. The game is not smart enough to allow me to complete building the raft unless I place it on water so I did just that in an attempt to attach the rudder. So guess what? The raft started drifting into the middle of the ocean and since it didn't have a sail built on it yet, I was not able to control its direction. I should have just jumped into the water while I was closer to the island but I was frozen in fear because I saw a large shark swimming near the surface close to the raft as I was drifting away. Then, something seemed to be bumping onto the raft. I was like, oh fuck. I was pretty certain that the game wouldn't dare give the sharks the ability to attack you on the raft because wouldn't that be too much? Since the weather seemed rather rough at the moment, I concluded that the sea was just playing tricks on me. I could have quit the game but I wanted to see if I could end up on one of these islands by luck no matter how long it would take. I angled the camera up so that my character couldn't see the open water around me. Then, in a blink of an eye, the flimsy raft got capsized...

Island hopping nightmare.

I was engulfed in fear. My body tensed up and I couldn't move. At that moment, the line between reality and video gaming blurred. It was such an awful, dreadful feeling. I knew that I was going to die. So what did I do? Well, I closed my eyes while clutching tightly on to the controller in my hands. I didn't want to the see the shark. I didn't want to see the dark depths of the ocean. I mustered up what was left of my courage and sneaked a peek and saw that I was fully submerged so I forced myself to dive deeper into the ocean and then I closed my eyes again. I just want it to be over, no matter how cruel the solution because the unpleasant, horrific situation I was in. It took seemingly forever but my character eventually died from drowning. I think I was attacked by a shark too while I was drowning judging from the noises. Moral of the story? Well, I should never, ever allow myself to be that close to the ocean because if something happened to me in that environment, I would just give up...

FIRST IMPRESSION: 4 out of 5

Gamer Dream: The Eye Specialist

What do gamers dream about in their sleep? In this series, we will explore some of these weird dreams that I have been having of late. For the most part, all that I (not) see when I go to sleep is empty darkness, a sort of peacefulness that you can't feel, sort of like our non-existence before the interruption of life. So why have I been dreaming a lot lately? What the heck do they all mean?

Dreamed 01/24/2019: I found myself with an optometrist. I was getting my eyes checked and he was telling me that I need to see an eye specialist because he didn't know the reason I was having vision troubles. Then I found myself at a mall. I looked at the mall map and saw that the office of the eye specialist just happened to be at opposite end of the mall. I had to wade through a very crowded mall to get to this specialist. The term "eye specialist" kept repeating in my mind on my way there. When I finally made it to my destination, the dream suddenly ended.

Perspective: I do have vision issues so I can see the reason behind this theme. It's a condition that I have to pretty much live with but apparently I may not be satisfied with this situation at a subconscious level. The mall setting is an interesting addition to this. I haven't been to a mall in 10+ years. I hate the mall. Is going to the mall even a thing in this digital age? Its inclusion here seems to be of fear and discomfort, a location of probable danger and uncertainty. I am not a fan of public places, especially these days. Then the repetition of "eye specialist" - the only thing I can think of is my frequent selection of the "Ranged Specialist" character Nazeebo in Heroes of the Storm. He's my go to character whenever I play the game. If not for the daily quests requiring me to play a different character class, specialist Nazeebo is always my number one choice. It's Nazeebo, Nazeebo, Nazeebo! and I play HotS a lot, so that's a lot of Nazeebo. The "Ranged Specialist" description under his name has branded itself into my mind without me knowing it. As a matter of fact, I never noticed that description being placed under the character name during the character selection screen until I took the screenshot below. The "Eye Specialist" then can be decoded as "I (am the) Specialist" as a sort of self-affirmation message. So nothing too deep in this particular dream, just a mishmash of my daily reality. The whole specialist thing is perhaps the most prevalent aspect of this experience so we can categorize this one as definitely gaming related.

Nazeebo in my mind. Is this a good thing?

A Beautiful Odyssey

If you are familiar with the way I game, you know that I skip around a lot. Everything is mood based, it doesn't matter when a title first materialized in my Game Library, if I am in the mood for a particular experience, I normally would drop anything that I was supposed to continue playing - you know these days, games are mostly designed as a long single playthrough event - and move on to the next thing. These past couple of years, it's been hard to pull me away from Heroes of the Storm, but a game finally managed to do that and it's Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. There have been major controversies surrounding this game with the whole XP boost situation - though 40+ hours in, I have not experienced any hindrance from not accessing this tacked-on feature - and the unfortunate spoiler I overheard about relationship decision with the latest downloadable content. Still, Odyssey is such a blast to play, there is always something for me to do, and the way they manage level scaling is very effective where you are free to pursue whatever quest chains you desire at any time.

Head over heels for Odyssey.

Now it helps that the main character in this game is hawt and yes, I picked Alexios, the guy. Based on the short amount of time I dabbled into Assassin's Creed: Origins, I understand that both games feature the same open world do anything, see everything philosophy as well as the graphics engine but you know it always helps to have attractive looking main characters, I mean, I try to make one every time I am given the opportunity to in a game's character creation screen. I personally think Origins looks a tad better environment wise, for some reason I favor the Egyptian theme more even though it's mostly over-represented in video games and other media than Greek culture. So yes, Alexios made me committed to check out what he's up to, something that Origin's Bayek failed to do, before I was completely hooked by the game itself.

You know who else is enjoying this game? The bloody in-game sharks...

As you can probably gather, I am pretty much sold on this game. I just love playing it and then I encountered something I found absolutely beautiful: two manly Greek guys kissing. Well, I found this extraordinary because even though gay themes have been making it into video games for a while now, they sometimes tend to showcase the "safer" representation of a gay couple. For example, you would normally get an elf partner because you know, male elves apparently are generally considered fair and pretty and then sometimes the other guy would almost, always be flamboyant. I know that sexuality is a spectrum: sure, there are plenty of gay couples comprised of two effeminate guys - usually the way it's represented in popular media, ahem Modern Family - because I think for some reason the responsible entities always try to drastically distinguish gay men from straight men and there is something wrong with that. So when two roid-rage types, a Spartan and a rough mercenary, are just pawing all over each other in a video game, well, that's always a cause for celebration. Yes, Odyssey has been very, very good to me.

Surprisingly, I managed to get my finger to hit that screenshot key while this was happening.