Category Archives: Games

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

In the mail today.

Official game trailer.

Thanks Ubisoft! Super keen to give this a spin!

Released 5 years ago, now remastered, it’s amazing how Skyrim holds up to the other 2 brand new games below.

Dishonored 2, this story/action/adventure style of gameplay is more new to me than the other 2 games.

BF1’s first person shooter all the way, definitely gameplay I’m more familiar with.

I’ve spent a fair few hours on the games above since I’ve been back from LA but I’ve failed to get the bug with either of them. Out of the 3 I’ve spent more hours in Skyrim where I’ve followed the main quest and finished the main storyline. I felt I needed to at least give it that much, but I don’t have the urge to keep on exploring Skyrim’s huge open world mainly because I’m just not that into the world of Skyrim (LOTR/dragons/magic etc).

Having said that I’m actually not into the worlds of any of these games and that probably plays a huge factor here. Dishonored 2 has a gothic/magic/dark mystery adventure style gameplay that’s visually spectacular (the animation sequences where you’re actually murdering someone are pretty intense), but it also left me with the feeling of not really playing the game, like I was steering more than truly being immersed in the world and free to roam and discover.

Then there’s BF1. Yup EA know how to make a game with a really polished feel. Clean menus, clean type. I threw myself into a few campaign modes and hated being in the tank, and then in a plane. I then loaded up some multiplayer and found it super frustrating as I was being one-shotted for hours at a time. I went back to campaign play but stayed out of vehicles (I played Gallipoli) and saw what all the fuss was about. The Gallipoli campaign was fantastic, great character development considering how short the cut scenes were, great music, great combat too.

I’m quite sure I’m done with Skyrim, and I’m really not keen to keep on playing Dishonored 2 despite it being the prettiest world out of the 3 games above and also having the most interesting gameplay. If anything I’ll most likely just play a little BF1 multiplayer from time to time, but one thing’s for sure; playing all 3 of these games has really left me yearning for the release of Fallout 5! The boxes I now need ticking are: rpg, shooter, looter, open world, character development & storyline (yeah not that much to ask!).

I managed to play a little bit of Skyrim just before I left for LA. Sydney to LA is a 14hr flight so I figured that I had plenty of time to catch up on movies. Once we were in the air I was hunting down a movie to watch that was in the theme of Skyrim, that failed, then I came across Game of Thrones (Season 6) and booya! I hadn’t ever watched an episode of GoT so I just dove right in and ended up watching every single episode straight in one sitting (as you do).

Loved the music, worlds, architecture, characters, death, gore and special effects; all of which set my frame of mind up nicely to come back home and play Skyrim.

Whilst I was away I got a message from my friend Amanda Sierras (who’s a DJ/Model I met through Breanna Espina/Zen/shooting). She needed a place to stay for a couple of weeks before she jets off on an Asia tour. I figured playing games on the couch would be a pretty geeky/bad guest thing to do but hey I just had a 14hr flight back home, I was buggered as fuck and needed some down time, she’d totally understand right?! I loaded Skyrim up and Amanda instantly lit up and showed me her fingers, which had games from her childhood tattooed on them.

She asked what I was playing. I said “Skyrim!” and she replied “I know Skyrim! What are you? A mage, or warrior?”. Gahhh! This girl is amaze!!!

Yup, that’s the Lucas Arts logo tattooed on Amanda’s finger (and yup we had enough of the Trump debate and played Skyrim instead!).

Trump was winning. “Stuff politics, let’s play Skyrim instead!”.

There’s SO much undulation in this world. You can climb up and over mountains if you choose to.

Apparently these Sweet Rolls are a bit of a thing in the game. I’m lucky I haven’t gotten to to know the game for long enough to know this, otherwise missing this event where Bourke Street Bakery lovingly re-created the Skyrim Sweet Roll would have been devastating.

Exploration, finding a companion and looting. So many instant similarities to Fallout 4, except you can’t really modify your home (let alone create settlements like you can in Fallout).

Lydia’s an awesome companion in battle, but as a character, she’s nowhere near as deep or developed as most main companions in Fallout 4 (which I felt I had genuine connects with).

The world sure is beautiful at times.

Entering a cave is often like entering a new world.

Puzzles like this kill me. I ended up having to youtube this one unfortunately.

But it got me my first Elder Scroll.

My character ended up being more of a combat character, lots into one-handed skill, spells with the other and shouts on top.

I’m glad I’ve gotten to play a game which SO many people out there have been raving on about for years. I’ve now got Battlefield 1 to play, and the post man just dropped off a copy of Dishonored 2 earlier today. It looks like I’m more up to date on games than I’d originally thought!

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition is out now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

I got to briefly (it’s always super brief these days sadly!) catch up with Charles Kha (formerly Autosalon Magazine Editor, Editor of SpeedHunters and now VP at EA Games). Although brief, it’s always great. We parted ways after a few drinks and ciggies, but then Charles buzzed me a little bit after to ask for my hotel room number as he’d forgot to give me something! BF1!!! #omfgtheregoesmylifeforthenextfewmonths