thirdworldgamer

I will admit, I was initially doubtful of Titanfall. Having tried the beta last year, it didn't feel right to me. I tried it on PC at the time and I had a few minor gripes: - Your Titan went down pretty quick in the beta.  - There was this weapon called the 'Smart Pistol' which shoots enemies without aiming - The parkour didn't feel very critical to the gameplay (at the time) Couple that with the knowledge I had that it won't have a single player campaign, and I ended up dismissing the game entirely.  So when it finally came out on Xbox One  I wasn't the first in line to buy it. In fact, I bought Titanfall during the recent Black Friday sale where it cost $13 to buy the game, the season pass and all the map packs together. It's a huge steal at that price, so I went ahead and picked it up. Now note that I picked up this game after I had played the much hyped Destiny from Bungie Studios, Battlefield 4, and Halo Master Chief Collection. These...

I read online that (unfortunately) most people are still not aware about all the changes that MS implemented for the Xbox One since E3 2013. As we all know, E3 2013 was a disaster for Microsoft and it permanently tainted their reputation with a lot of gamers. I do follow the news daily and I know that Microsoft has made amends. I think more people have to know that a lot of their policies were already changed, even before they actually released the Xbox One in the marketplace. What irritates me a bit is how one of the local stores, Datablitz, seems to be promoting these false notions. I heard that their clerks would tell potential buyers that the Xbox One requires a patch every week, and, in native tagalog, they would say "yan ang sakit nung Xbox One"....which is a really stupid, incorrect thing to say. Do their sellers know the products that they are selling? Do they even want to sell them and make any money? Regardless of what platform they favor, it's a pretty st...

There is a place where you can drive endlessly for miles, as fast as you want, as much as you want. Where you can purchase expensive sports cars relatively easily because of all the money you get just by driving around for fun. Where you can go off the road in your McLaren P1 and not worry about the consequences. This is Forza Horizon 2. And as you can probably tell by now, I'm absolutely smitten with this game.  Every car fantasy that inspired classics like Daytona USA, Ridge Racer, and even Gran Turismo has culminated into this one ridiculously amazing racing game. You're put into a huge, open world where you can drive wherever you want, and participate in various types of races in different sorts of weather and all kinds of road environments. You've got the choice of over 200+ cars, and can tune, upgrade, and customize their look all you want. All sorts of colors, paints; you name it, this game has it. This game has all kinds of environments --- city type environ...

I generally don't agree with most gamers when it comes to having games always be 1080p. 1080p is nice to have, but it's not something I need for my game to feel worth it. I'd rather be sure that a game plays smoothly, or that a game has a sound gameplay mechanic, than be actually counting individual pixels on my screen.  That said, I believe that Digital Foundry is doing a huge disservice to gamers by creating ridiculous expectations for game graphics. I just find it a bit irritating that most game discussion now boils down to resolution debates, and whether you're getting value for your money or not.  If you're still doubtful that your spending on a new console was a waste of money, it probably was. You move on to a new generation of systems to get to play the games you want, not to count the pixels and declare one company a winner over another, or get to trample down on another person because of their choices. 

Destiny is the hot topic of the week in the games industry. A lot of people are saying that basically it was overhyped to be this fantastic, large-scale game, only to turn out to be a shooter with MMORPG elements. I have to agree with some parts of what most are saying: advancement in Destiny requires that you play the missions over again. Finishing the game is a good thing to go for, and when you do finish it, you'll notice the whole single player campaign is about 16 hours long (or even less, if you're good as speed runs). But the impression I got from the 'end' of the game is that it isn't the real end, and that this game is something like a TV series or a saga that you would have to follow for a few weeks or months to get the most entertainment out of. So, in the time that Destiny is asking us players to wait for them to release more story content, they're asking us to play the missions over again, with different play mechanics or harder challenges. From t...

Gamescom 2014 just happened and there's been a lot of anger over the Rise of the Tomb Raider going exclusively to Xbox One. That was yesterday. Today we found out that it's not really a true exclusive but a timed exclusive. So in the past 24 hours, all I've been reading on Neogaf is just page after page of vitriol loaded posts. It's pretty upsetting. Personally, it doesn't bother me that ROTR is going to be exclusive to any platform at all. It's just one game. It's a great series, and we all know how iconic Lara Croft is. But still, the level of anger and the stuff people are saying online about it is kind of ridiculous. In the first place, if the game was fully exclusive to Xbox, it's not like Playstation owners don't have enough games to play anyway. They've got practically every multiplatform title coming for them, supposedly in full 1080p so they already get the best versions of everything. They've got Uncharted 4, which is probably goi...

I got this game a few weeks ago and I'm really enjoying it. As a showcase for the Xbox One it definitely works; it demonstrates what 'next-gen' visuals should be all about. Great art direction, extremely sharp CG level graphics...this game is just beautiful. And it's a first gen game! Imagine how good Xbox One games will get after 2-3 years. It's mind boggling to think about after seeing this game. The combat reminds me of old games like Golden Axe but with hyper-realistic graphics, great voice acting, sound effects and music. This game is a like a big tribute to major films like 300, Troy and Gladiator...it just has a lot of great moments that make you think back to those films, but---this game manages to have a character all its own. A lot of the action involves button mashing and good timing with QTEs...it just feels good to play. Maybe some would say it's repetitive because there are just a few enemy types but I don't know....have they played Double D...

One thing that bugs me about Asian/Philippine console game pre-order bonuses --- those damned black t-shirts. 1) They're always too small [hey guys, we aren't all teens!] 2) They always come in BLACK [which makes their usability quite limited, in my humble opinion] Enough with the pre-order bonus black t-shirt!

We picked up a [kinect-less] Xbox One a few weeks ago and have been putting it through its paces. Overall, right now I feel pretty good about this console. But I have to admit, the first experience of buying it is not very good. I'll go with the BAD news first. But do note that it isn't all bad news.... - The first time you bring it home, the console can't work without Internet. That's because it needs an absolutely-unoverrideable mandatory update. Basically, if you get this for your birthday and it's 7PM, expect to actually play games on it around a day or so later, depending on your internet speed. - The first patch I got for it was around 800MB. This number might have changed by the time of this writing. - All the launch games now have accumulated patches/updates over 16+ GB in size. Not just Dead Rising 3, which has been reported widely in the media. Even Forza 5. - My internet at home is PLDT 3Mbps; managed to get all the updates pretty quickly....that...

Instead of just having a two hour press conference for game journalists, Nintendo decides to take over E3 by creating a SERIES of events on the first day to highlight their upcoming games for both the Wii U and the 3DS. What we got wasn't a short conference but an 11 hour odyssey, focused on the games and explaining DIRECTLY to gamers the best features of their upcoming titles. What Nintendo lacked in graphical horsepower, they made up in finesse, and they did this in spades. Knowing full well their console can't handle the gigantic textures and polygon counts of their competition, their first party games focus on providing cartoon-like graphics with very speedy animation and bright colors. Hardly a shade of brown, grey or red was to be seen during Nintendo's Digital Event. Nintendo showed off some spectacular visuals for their upcoming games: specifically, the Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros Wii U were just impeccable  in quality. Their work looks to be a triumph ...

Just sat through the two major press conferences for E3 2014. Without Nintendo yet for comparison, but perhaps I'll write again if anything notable comes up during their 'digital event', which is a few hours from now. (It's going to be today at 12 midnight, Philippine time) Microsoft had a strong showing. While I will admit they didn't have anything mind-blowing, or the type of 'shocking' announcements that these types of press events become memorable for....they did bring a good list of exclusive games. Most notably, the game that grabbed my attention (and seemingly everyone else's) is Sunset Overdrive. Part Dead Rising, Part Infamous, Part Ratchet and Clank....the game is very colorful and a big departure from the usual dreary, bloody games we get year after year. Yes it still has some adult-level violence but at least the presentation isn't the usual 'guy-in-military-fatigues' fare that all companies seem to be churning out for console...

Mario Kart 8 is the Wii U's strongest title to date. Based on my three days of play with the game over about a dozen or more hours, both in single player and multiplayer....this game is an absolute blast. The graphics are gorgeous and everything about it screams good design and art sensibility. I can imagine some people might be turned off by the cutesy graphics and Nintendo characters, but underneath all that is a well designed GAME. Multiplayer is the absolute star of the show. With my Philippine-quality internet I get into races in literally seconds. With past games on both Playstation Network and Xbox Live, matchmaking can take 15 minutes or longer. I don't know how Nintendo did it. Maybe Mario Kart is just simpler to code for since it just involves race cars? This game doesn't have the usual issues with driving games on laggy connections. Things like teleporting cars, cars going much faster than you....I have seen none of this happen while I was playing this game, ...

Playing through a big chunk of this game currently and I really have a hard time believing this got scores as low as 6/10 and 4/10. The game is pure spectacle and while it is no longer the 2D game most game veterans are familiar with, it is a good if appreciated as a pure action game. With every action beat I'm reminded of the God of War series, but I think this game just feels more fluid and smoother than that game. There's a lot more technique to fighting since there are various combinations you can do with the shadow whip, the void sword and the chaos [knuckles? gloves? can't remember it's official name]. Also, you can't just mash mindlessly since some enemies are well armored and you need to switch between weapons to do any real damage. The game has a ton of boss fights and each one of them is epic thanks to the really nice soundtrack. I kept thinking of the first game and what I liked about that one as I played this. To think I actually ALMOST missed out on...

Having undertaken a few weeks of hunting down my older gaming consoles, cartridges and CDs, I learned the hard way the consequences of not taking good care of your stuff, no matter how seemingly irrelevant they are at the time. It was an interesting experience to say the least. You wouldn't believe how 20+ years of ignoring an old piece of electronics can do to it. In the case of the Super NES, it turns out that (and I don't even remember this) we had 2 SNESes in our house. Maybe this is explained by the fact that I have mostly brothers with me. So maybe, back then, there wasn't really much sharing going on with the consoles and some guys wanted to play sports games and there's this other guy (me) who wanted to play those RPGs. I didn't find my OWN SNES games, well, I didn't find a good majority of them. What I did find were my brothers' games. It was a good thing though that some really important games like Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan) and Super Stre...

When I was young I had all these games and systems from SEGA and Nintendo. I didn't really think much of them, so occasionally I'd misplace them and never really kept things organized. I'd toss a controller here, an old game there....I'd ask someone to move them to another spot to make room for other things. I didn't think that about 20 years later, I would end up looking for those old things.  Now the problem is, the people who moved around my stuff are no longer around, so it seems they're all scattered somewhere in my old house (I've since moved out since I got married). There are a few stock rooms in my place and as you can imagine, 20 years is going to build up a ton of junk in those places. Who knows if my old stuff is still there! Maybe the maid threw out some of them!  So why am I obssessing over classic games? http://classicgameroom.com , for one thing. I just turned 35 a few weeks ago, too. That and seeing how everything is going digital now...

It's good to see a lot of ads for Playstation in Metro Manila. There's this gigantic streamer over at Glorietta today with details on their upcoming PS4 launch tomorrow. I guess if you're a big Sony fan here in the Philippines, times are good. Almost every bit of news out of the gaming press and forums is positive for the Playstation brand, but most of it is positive because of its potential for great games. Great games have not YET arrived for the PS4 but because of things like theoretical perfomance measurements, and comparisons between multiplatform games, it seems the Playstation 4 is winning. But until we actually see more 'must-play' games, the PS4's success isn't guaranteed yet. At least, in my humble opinion. On the Xbox front, locally it looks tough for them because of the higher price tag, but out of the gate they have some games considered as 'AAA' by most gamers. Games such as Forza 5 and the latest Dead Rising are pretty high profile...