Key

Pokemon Go

I am more than willing to admit when i'm wrong, especially when its about a game that has gained a lot of hype over the past couple days. I wasn't a huge fan of the game when it was released, so I sort of dismissed it. Then, everybody and their mother was posting about it on Facebook, so I gave it another shot. Before I knew it, my battery had gotten down to nearly dead and I had caught a **** ton of Pokemon, and I admit it, i've been having a great time doing it. This is one of the few times when something was hyped so much, and it actually has delivered, for the most part. If you're living under a rock and you don't know what this game is, well...it's basically like being your own trainer on your phone, and catching Pokemon in a pretty clever way. It manipulates your camera and puts Pokemon into your world, and you get to catch them. Granted, the game does have it's issues, but that's to be expected due to it both being a free app with in game purchases, and still being in it's beta form. There's been a lot of instances of the servers not working properly, but that's probably due to the massive amount of players on it right now. I've even seen people playing this and I know for a fact that they're not even a fan of Pokemon, at all. But it's nice to see that the game is doing so well. Hopefully that will mean there will be more motivation to make the game better.

I'm one of the few that thinks the game is good the way it is currently, but there's been a lot of people and I mean a LOT of people complaining that the game isn't anywhere near what they were expecting. I'm honestly surprised that Nintendo was able to put out a game that is as cool as this one. Again, it's got it's issues, but it hasn't kept me from enjoying it, especially since I was able to catch one of my all time favorite Pokemon right in my front yard:



Of course...it would be nice to be able to make dinner in peace again, instead of being rudely interrupted...



At the end of the day, it's a game that people will either have fun with, or they won't. I'm definitely having a good time with it, and I hope the hype for it continues.

Zhanteimi

This craze kinda reminds me of:

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Zhanteimi

LetsTalkMusic

The Batlord

I'm just gonna assume that Pokemon GO has made children in Japan into oblivious road hazards.

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Zhanteimi

It's not in Japan yet, as far as I know. Only Stateside.

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Zhanteimi

LetsTalkMusic

Key

Whether it's console games, PC games, or even mobile games, 2016 has been jam packed full of them, and I'm going to be talking about them for the next few weeks. There's still some games that I'm hoping get releases this year, but there's also been some great games that have come out this year that I really enjoy. I don't know if i'll be ranking them like I do with my top albums of the year, but I still want to talk about the games that have blown me away this year. And to add a bit of a twist, I'll also talk about games that left me wanting more, or got moved straight to my uninstall list. There's been some duds this year, but a year isn't a normal year without some disappointments.

Each post will be separated into three separate categories:


Games that I have played that I consider a good game, and would be willing to play through again. Also games that I continue playing long after their release date.


Games that fall a little bit short. There are some games this year that I was looking forward to, that really didn't do it for me. Unfortunately means that they are no longer in my "to play" list.


I watch a lot of gaming channels on Youtube, and most of them play games that are released this year. Sometimes a game doesn't completely pull me in, so having the reference of someone to watch really helps with that. Some games I have gotten for myself even after someone plays them. But most of the time, if I've watched it on Youtube, I haven't really bothered buying it for myself.

Key

I've talked about Enter The Gungeon a few times in this journal. Once when I was talking about the fact that I had only been watching the game in a First Impressions post, then another time when I started to play it for the first time. Since then, I've racked up a couple good hours into the game to come to the conclusion that the game is a damn fine release for this year. It's developed by a team by the name of Dodge Roll, and published by Devolver Digital, who is known for publishing games like Downwell, Hotline Miami, Broforce, and the list just goes on and on. Basically, they're pretty renowned as a pretty good publisher, and the games that have in their arsenal of published is pretty amazing.

What should you expect from Enter The Gungeon? Well, if you've played games like Binding of Isaac, or Nuclear Throne, or any type of bullet hell style game, you pretty much have Enter The Gungeon. But it gets much deeper than that. In most rogue like games, you'd expect some depth to them like weapon choices, synergies, fantastic level design, great music, and difficult bosses. Well, Enter The Gungeon delivers not only that, but much more than that. If you've played Enter The Gungeon before, you know all about the difficulty curve that the game throws at you from the start. I've probably talked about it a few times myself. Basically, the game is hard as ****, for good reason. When I play games like this, I do typically like them to be hard at first, because the satisfaction of progressing makes you feel like you have actually worked hard to get to that point. Pretty much the same goes for my time in Binding of Isaac. The more you play, the better you get. I think that could be the standard for rogue like games, but I could be wrong. And if I am wrong, well...that should be the standard for these types of games, because it feels great once you get to the point where you can say "yeah, i'm good at this game."

So yeah, Enter The Gungeon is tough. It's definitely one of the harder games I've picked up recently. I don't know if it's as hard or close to as hard as Darkest Dungeon, but both have their own difficulty curves which makes me want more. With the toughness though comes the satisfaction of what I mentioned before, the variety. You can find a variety of different weapons ranging from a squirt gun, to a gun that shoots bees at your enemies. Of course, finding out whether those guns are good or not is all up to you using those guns and seeing how far you can get to them. The other thing this game adds and it's something I really like, and it adds to it's difficult curve, is how little the game helps you along the way. For example, you could go through a whole run (and runs typically take up to an hour, if you're good enough at the game to get to the end boss), and you could easily not get one single ammo drop, or one key to open a chest, or whatever. You get plenty of money though so that's where it equals it out. So, if you've played gun games before and you're not used to conserving your ammo, you better get used to it, because if not, you're screwed in the end game.

At the end of the day, Enter The Gungeon is a fantastic game, and definitely one worthy of being in this list as well as being a shining moment in the rogue like genre altogether. Dodge Roll have done something amazing, and I sincerely hope they continue the streak of developing amazing games, because they really know how to do it. I look forward to seeing where this developer goes, and if they take off into another genre, I hope they stick with how difficult they make games, because the difficulty again is a big part of why I enjoy this game so much. And do pick it up for yourself if you're interested, I guarantee you will get that feeling of "man I want to play this game right now" feeling right away.

Key

I was caught by surprise when I saw a streamer playing this game. I was wondering to myself "how the heck is he playing a mobile game on his computer, and why does it look so different?" Than I looked on Steam, and what do you know? Plague Inc had another release and thus we have Plague Inc: Evolved. So, if you're unfamiliar with this game, well, as I mentioned already, it was originally a mobile game, as far as I can tell anyway. The main goal is to play as a disease whether you're a bacterial disease or a virus or anything later in the game, and you try to wipe out the entire world with your disease. It comes with ways to transmit your disease across countries to how you further develop your disease in order to stay away from the doctors that are trying to make a cure. It's basically for those of us that want to feel like a supreme ruler that has the power to take over the world and cause a complete annihilation of the human race.

It's very fun, and when I had this game on mobile, I enjoyed the comic aspect of it, like the fake news stories that pop up, and the several different ways you can infect and kill all off the humans in different countries, but I also liked how much time I put into the game before I realized that I was basically killing off the entire world. It's a lot of fun in a sick way, but it tickles my fancy for a game in the right way. So naturally, when I found out there was a PC version out there, I had to get it, and my god, I am impressed with how far this game has come since it's debut on mobile. Plague Inc: Evolved is so much better than it's predecessor for all the right reasons. It's much more fluid, the comedy aspect is still there, there's more diseases to mess around with, there's custom scenarios, achievements, and so much more than that. When I got the game for the first time, I was absolutely blown away with how good it ran for a first time install, and instantly, I got into it and played. It's amazing to see a game do so well that was originally a mobile game, because sometimes that effect doesn't happen with some games. Some games don't do that transfer very well, but fortunately, Plague Inc did.

There's multiple youtubers playing this game, but if you'd like to see someone play it the right way, jacksepticeye has a running series of it, and his enjoyment of the game is basically how I would describe the game. He plays it the way I would, so it's nice to watch someone else have the similar play style.

I'm very happy to have found that this game existed, otherwise I would've never known that there was a full fledged PC version with constant updates. It makes the original game that much better, and it continues to get better. Really looking forward to future updates to this game, and will definitely play it some more.

Key

I was originally going to do a "first impressions" entry on Layers of Fear, but then I discovered that the game was actually released this year, so that allowed me to be a little bit more thorough with my review on the game by throwing it into the mix of reviews that I have been doing for 2016 releases.

I'm surprised that I didn't pick this game up upon release, because it's right up my alley. It's a horror game, ffs. More specifically, it's a psychological horror. So, if you're looking for a game that throws monsters or bad guys at you in order to scare you, this won't be the game for you. It's not a jump scare filled horror game, it's meant to be a little bit more slow paced while at the same time, creating a universe in your mind that will give you chills going down your spine. You play the role as a painter, but you come to find out more details about his personal life, his past mistakes, his relationships, while simultaneously going through your mansion of a house and finding more family heirlooms. The twist is that when you walk through a door, don't expect to see the same room behind the door you just went through. Sometimes you'll end up in a room you've seen before, but other times you'll end up in a room that you didn't know existed. It's done really well in the sense that some rooms will react to you stepping foot into them, like a figure will pop up and scare you, thus changing the mood and environment completely, or the game will throw nothing at you. From experience, it's kept me on my toes throughout my time playing, and I've only played about 2 hours so far.

The whole idea behind the game is really well done and unfortunately upon further inspection, the game really didn't do as well as you'd think in terms of critic reviews, but if you look at steam reviews, the people speak very positively about the game. I picked it up for the sheer fact that it was on sale, and the fact that I was itching for another horror game that I can submerge myself into. Granted, I've not touched Alien: Isolation in quite some time, but that's because I grew a little tired of it. At some point I'll go back to it. But this game really scratches that itch that i've been looking for. It's got everything I like in a game. It makes me think instead of just throwing things at me, and it's got a really good story. The cool thing about the story aspect is that it can change based on how you react to certain things that happen in the game. I've not really come across anything that could potentially change the way the game changes, but I can see why it would happen. But at the end of the day, every time I play it, I really get drawn into the story, especially since it's very well narrated and it's not just some straightforward "try to save this person" story, it's much more than that, but I won't spoil it.

Just keep in mind, if this review has interested you at all and you're curious about playing this game, don't expect a horror game that will make you **** your pants at every corner. It's much more than that, and it's why I've come to appreciate the psychological horror genre a lot more and the typical scare your pants off horror games have taken a bit of a back seat. I don't know what else the developer has done besides this game, but if they keep making horror games of this quality, I will be behind them one hundred percent. I look forward to either this game getting a sequel or whatever. I did pick up the DLC along with this, so I'll be interested to see how they plays out, but for the moment, I'm having a damn good time with this game, and I urge you to pick it up if you're interested in being psychologically freaked out.

Key

It's not done very often in this journal or any journal that I make for that matter, but when it happens, I feel it's my duty to do such a thing. What am I talking about? I'm talking about a follow up entry on a topic. I've done it only a few times for things that I feel extremely passionate about, and for a follow up entry to happen, I have to have either differing opinions to a topic, or I feel that more information is necessary to get the point across. Luckily, I'm making this follow up post to expand on my thoughts about Layers of Fear.

So, I'm getting further in this game, and I'm starting to realize how much of a masterpiece this game really is. I'll try to describe why that is without spoiling too much, but if you're not really interested in the slightest of spoilers, feel free to click away from this post. The first post about this game doesn't have any spoilers, so read that one instead. Now that i've warned you, i'm going to continue. Basically, I'm starting to realize a lot about my character, but not enough to say for a fact what the story is about. What I have found out is that my character who is an artist (a painter specifically) has been dealing with signs of schizophrenia. He's seeing things appear in front of him which probably leads to why the environment changes as you walk from room to room, and why some rooms come back after he has "an episode". I'm seeing a lot play out about the emotional crisis that him and his wife have gone through with having a child, which has started to play an important role in the story. I haven't learned a lot about what has happened to his wife or his child, but what I've seen has drawn me in, and I really want to know more. The game has thrown hints as to whether the child is still alive or not, and it's thrown hints as to whether the marriage worked out. What I've gathered so far is that the man is a workaholic, and he's missed some important parts of his child's life, like his 5th birthday for instance, given the fact that I picked up a "5th birthday hat" off the top of a teddy bear, and the story basically acted as though he worked too hard, and missed the birthday. There's multiple times where that type of story progression take place, and it's done so well that you really don't feel like the game is rushing you or pushing things right in your face. Again, it gives you the freedom whether you want to learn about that story or not, and it really does a solid job at creating the environment based on how you react to the story. It gives you multiple directions, and you choose which you want to take, and from what I've noticed, you can sometimes end up back where you started during a certain store progression, without feeling like you missed anything. Though, you have to wonder how the story would have played out had you not taken the path that you did.

I'm really getting immersed into this game, to the point that I want to save the game for when it's dark outside, because I did that last night, and I really felt way more immersed into the game. I think I may plan to do that from now on, though as evident from the fact that I just played this morning, I won't be able to help myself. It's really done well, and the game has really shown what can be done when the developer has a good understanding of what a psychological horror game can offer. Again, don't expect the game to throw things at you just to scare you. A lot of my horrifying experience with the game has simply come from what I feel while I walk through dark hallways and listening to the surrounding environment, whether it's footsteps, or something knocking on the door behind me, or just the stormy weather behind me. I hear there are multiple ways to play through this game, so luckily, I won't have to stop playing it anytime soon, and as I mentioned, there is a DLC story to the game, so i'll be excited to get into that once I discover all the endings for this game. I'm still on my first playthrough, and I already feel like I've missed a few things that I could have done, so that warrants another playthrough right there.

Certainly an exciting release, and probably one of the best horror games I've played this year, for sure.

Black Francis

I saw the grumps play the previous version of plague Inc and it looked like an interesting game. I tried getting a mobile version of it but I couldn't cause it was either not compatible with me cellphone or it costed money. (I don't remember which one)

If it had been released as a digital download for the ps3 I probably would've bought it cause its one of the few PC games that interested me along with Spore and Terraria. Thankfully I at least got Terraria.

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