Author Archives: Justin Fox

The game starts with words and music. When there’s words on a screen, you read. Within 10 minutes I was hooked.

No guns, just a walkie talkie and a compass.

SO refreshing to not be in a game where I’m not focussing on the latest and most realistic graphics available. Style is king when it comes to Firewatch. It’s stylistically beautiful in motion.

I have a better sense of direction after playing this game! The compass and map are essential to getting around in the game. They’re such a pleasure to use too.

A static screen grab just doesn’t do this game justice. In-game immersion is where it’s at.

At the end of the game you’re given an exploration gameplay mode with just you, and the world to discover (a really nice touch!).

As usual, I’m late to the party. I played a game called MYST (and Riven, the sequel), many years ago and I truly loved both games. They were more interactive art, than game. More related to the CD-ROM art/exploration era of the late 90’s. I’ve not played anything like MYST since, but I stumbled upon a genre of games titled “walking simulators”, horrible genre description, but it had me intrigued. I googled a bit and found links to a game called “Firewatch”. Turns out Lewis had already reviewed it on Zen, which rung a bell straight away so without hesitation I ended up buying the game on Steam for $20 US.

It’s smart, witty, emotional, and full of great moments. It’ll take you around 4-5 hours to complete. Save it for a rainy day. Savour it. It’s like a good book. I truly loved it.

PS: If you’re still in doubt about spending the $20 to buy the game, check out this video review, hopefully it’ll motivate you to download (PC, or buy on PS4) and play it!

I’ve upgraded all the textures in the game with VIVID Textures, and God Daym! Look at it now!

I’ve got Ved’s PC back to play The Division, but SO many people have come back to play The Division due to the new SURVIVAL DLC being launched, that we can’t even load into a server to play a game (bad Massive, BAD!)! Ved and I then thought we’d try Watch Dogs 2 multi-player, only to find we couldn’t do the main story co-op (that would have been awesome!), and the multiplayer action just wasn’t engaging us in the same way that The Division does, primarily because the shooting mechanics just weren’t up to par in Watch Dogs 2.

I couldn’t resist buying Fallout 4 on the PC (through Steam). It was damn expensive for an old game, but I knew MODS would make it new again, and holy shit now I know what PS4 guys have been missing out on!

I’ve discovered Nexus, and using the Nexus Mod Manager makes modding the game crazy easy. I’m up to 80 mods now, each and every one of them are awesome, and have changed the game for the better (some small changes, some epic ones!). I’ve also completed a few new quests made by fans, a couple of which took hours to finish, and were just as good in quality as Bethesda’s own quests (blows my mind!).

I’m now contemplating buying the most modded game of all time, Skyrim for PC, because there’s so much more you can do with that, due to the HUGE modding community, than Fallout 4! Enjoy some of the screen grabs below.

Watching the awesome animation of getting into and out of Power Armour will never get old, it’s even better now when you command your naked companions to do it.

Everything looks amazing now, flying over to that bridge, etc, it’s all about discovery and the boost in graphics quality has upped the immersion, big time.

And yup, every item is lootable in Fallout 4. So cool, wish The Division did the same (such a shame to waste all that detail in the world!).

The textures change SO much. The roads especially. I’ve also added a whole lot of greenery to the entire world, not over the top like some mods, keeping within lore, just enough to make it feel like time has passed on and everything is starting to grow back.

Skyrim inspired Power Armour! You can mod it at the PA Station with the remains of animals you’ve slain. It also comes with a sword and battle axe.

Optimus Prime Power Armour, then there’s Batman, Superman. Yup, you can pretty much be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do with mods!

The Iron Man armour lets me fly, which has been the best way to re-discover The Commonwealth.

So much fun to be had! I’ve got a weed farm going on now.

If you’ve not played Fallout 4, or Skyrim, consider buying either one through Steam, then the Nexus Mod Manager and get busy modding! You might regret it?!

I downloaded a new update on the PS4 for Fallout 4 and it’s looking like Bethesda has made mods available in this update! The mods can be downloaded via the main menu in the game, there’s quite a few mods in there already (all clean as it’s PlayStation here, not PC), some look to be game breaking, but I’ll start with a few simple ones like visual mods for Piper, opening up more dialogue for Piper as well as a developer room which will give me access to every single item in the game all in the one cave close to home.

Check out the mods here: https://mods.bethesda.net/#en/workshop/fallout4

PS: Man the music is just such a huge hook in this game for me. Hanging out for Fallout 5 more than any other game right now. In love with this game, in love with Bethesda!

Oh noes, not fist pumps! The cut scenes are a bit cheesey, but the characters are complex and likeable enough.

Watch Dogs 2 is a game about hacking, it’s got a really fresh young vibe going on, the game tackles current affairs and it’s overall been a really fun (not so serious, scary, or full of doom and gloom) game to play.

I’ve watched just about every hacking related movie and doco there is to watch. Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, The Internet’s Own Boy (Aaron Swartz’s story on Netflix, must watch), so I was instantly curious about Watch Dogs 2; a game about hacking, and just how would the developers make hacking the primary part of the game (and how would they make it fun?).

Ubisoft has done an awesome job of re-creating San Francisco. I hope that one day Sydney will feature in an open world game of this quality.

Lots of graff all over the city.

Some worth taking a selfie with.

On loading, the game throws you into the deep end right away (Metal Gear Solid’esque action scenario), and the movie intro actually begins a fair bit later. Refreshing change from games which have much slower tutorial style intros. You’re Marcus, a chill dude who ends up hooking up with DedSec, a bunch of hacker mates. The enemy is tech company Blume and their ctOS computer system and the world is set in the Bay Area of California, which is absolutely huge, and looks amazing in game (I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and was sold).

Meet the crew.

There’s a real fun, neon punk graphic design aesthetic which carries throughout the short videos which support and break up missions.

To me, Watch Dogs 2 instantly feels a little bit like The Division; familiar HUD graphics and action mechanisms, but graphics are even better in general, especially in regards to the main character’s detail and movement. The characters you meet are quite developed (more like characters in Fallout 4) and stealing cars, bikes and exploring the streets feels a lot like playing Grand Theft Auto V, which isn’t a bad thing, right?!

Cars are pretty cool in the game (I love the in car first person mode), hardly any traffic means you have much less to hit (and cars are super easy to control so driving is never frustrating).

All sorts of clothes shops to visit!

Marcus’ phone is his primary weapon and tool to launch apps which control all sorts of stuff like starting new missions, taking selfies and playing tunes (as you’d imagine). He’s also got an RC car and Quadcopter to play with (which is essential and super fun but also crazy expensive so you’ll have to do some driving side missions and hack people’s accounts in order to cash up to buy it). Marcus can also hack terminals, cameras, cars and more. Failing a mission a few times helps a lot in getting familiar with the hacking tools, which are an essential part of the game, but then there’s shooting too.

Selfies, gaining followers and making guns with the 3D printer. How very “now”!

Watch Dogs 2 primarily focuses on moving stealthily and hacking, but Marcus can use a 3D printer to create various guns. I’m not sure the game becomes more convincing when a hacker starts shooting his way through missions, but hey the option is there to play the game how you like, and that’s a good thing I think (as I really enjoy shooting games and running in guns blazing is always more my style).

PS: I got a pre-release retail PlayStation 4 copy of the game provided by Ubisoft. At the time of review the PlayStation 4 version of the game has a major multiplayer bug. Ubisoft are well aware of this bug and expects to have it fixed by the time the game launches for the public (it’s now available!). I’ll be buying the PC version of the game when it launches at the end of this month so I can test out the multuplayer with Ved!

For more info, visit: http://watchdogs.ubisoft.com