2014 Video Games Thread
 

Time to start the new years video game thread!

Here is last years thread...

NBA 2k14

5000 free VC for down servers, posted Jan. 1st 2014

NBA 2K14 Free VC Codes: Grab 5,000 Virtual Points For PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 & Xbox One | sidhtech

Enter the dashes.

What's everyone looking forward to?

The game I want to get most is Smash Bros.

More later this year, but these should be released in the first quarter of this year:

Perfect Parallel - hopefully the first good golf game since Links
Banished - A great looking city-building sim

A rough top 10 most anticipated, as I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting here.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
2. Bayonetta 2
3. Broken Age
4. Transistor
5. Wasteland 2
6. Pillars of Eternity
7. Bravely Default
8. The Division
9. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
10. South Park: The Stick of Truth

A few other games I'm looking forward to that don't quite count and new releases.

Kentucky Route Zero, The Walking Dead: Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us - Three episodic games that still have most of their episodes to go in 2014.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and GTAV - Have been waiting for the PC port to play these two.

So it's not new, but new to me. Been playing a bunch of Radiant Historia on my 3DS (it's a regular DS game). Thoughts so far:

Solid RPG with a time travel mechanic. Has a lot of similarities to Chrono Trigger - enemies are visible on the map, and as long as they don't touch you, they don't fight you. When in battle, enemies are on a 3x3 grid, and you have techniques that can knock them around the battlefield. Consecutive attacks on an enemy that has been knocked into another enemy hit both enemies. You can also swap your turn in battle for someone further down the list for turn order (including enemies), so you can plan ahead to get large combos.

The time travel mechanic (super slight spoiler alert - this is all stuff you figure out in the first thirty minutes of game play) comes in the form of a book called the White Chronicle - decisions that you have to make as a character (so far all binary decisions) create "nodes," and as the game progresses, you can go back in time to these nodes and explore what the other possibility would have yielded. While this sounds awesome, in practice the game swings around the first major decision you make, creating two separate timelines that form the entirety of the game. So while this COULD be a super robust, interesting mechanic with a huge sprawling story, in reality it's rather limited. That being said, it makes for a fun romp so far. There are 230-something nodes (not all are decision-making nodes, some are simple plot points and others are side quests), and after 10 hours of gameplay I've completed 55 of them.

The story so far is an interesting one of political intrigue...but it's hamstrung a bit by being completely and totally devoid of subtlety. As an example, you'll get a great line that hints subtelely at some devious scheme...and in the next line the character actually says "well, let me spell it out for you" and then explains exactly what they mean. And in case you miss that heavy handed approach, the NPC'a around the event will hammer the idea home with more heavy handed exposition. It definitely doesn't ruin the story, but it does detract from it in my mind.

Biggest con so far for me is that when you travel back in time, you have to sit through all the dialogue again. They have a nice "fast forward" button that speeds it up considerably, but I'm not sure why they didn't add a "skip this conversation?" type of script. The major nodes are very dialogue heavy, so you will be sitting there for a minute or two holding the fast forward button to get through it.

Overall, very glad I purchased, enjoying it a lot, though I feel like with a few tweaks this could have been a truly great game.

Concern Now Heightened Over Universal Currency System in MLB 14: The Show | pastapadre.com

Ugh, I really hate this trend in sports games. I wish it would die quickly, but it seems to be a cash cow for publishers so that doesn't look likely.

Depends on how it's done. If you pay money to accelerate development / buy boosts, I'm fine with that. If you pay money to simply advance (or basically play the game at all), I'm against it.

For example, if I can pay money to become a superstar in a single season in NBA 2k14, or I can play for free and go through a more typical 2-4 season development period, that's cool. But if I stay a bench / role-player unless I pay money, I'm not buying that game.

Or if it's a football sim and I can pay money to get more scouting time in the draft, that's fine. But if I have to pay money to start a season or get ANY draft picks, that's not cool.

I would like to propose this thread get the same title as the previous one:
Gen 4 Console (PS4/X1) Discussion - Minus sales data and grand standing - Front Office Football Central

It's no big deal if someone wants to say "Hey! Game X broke 1M" or "Wow! That's the biggest day of any game ever". Those are facts and they're somewhat important to the discussion. But the dickish XBone/PS4 back and forth and concern trolling just makes these threads unreadable.

SI

Sounds like I'll need to take that off my shelf and play it at some point. It was rare right off the bat and the price on the secondary market jumped as high as $100 at one point. I happily found a copy at the $35 retail price at a little media shop that didn't know what they had and I kept it wrapped up because of the premium it was going for.

Fortunately, Atlus reprinted it maybe a year or so ago so it's fairly readily available.

SI

I still dislike this sort of system where spending this sort of currency earned in game replaces just having a normal player progression simulation. Plus there's the issues with NBA2K14 where players who simmed were left without enough magic development points for their players to get better n

Looking forward to a game out of nowhere like The Last of Us this year... that game was not on my radar, and became suddenly my favorite game of all-time.

Still need to play that one.

Do it -- I just finished it a few days ago while snowed in -- it's a gem.

Elder Scrolls Online invites sent for beta game - Technology & Science - CBC News

So Elder Scrolls Online is going for $59.99 cost out of the box and $14.99 monthly subscription. Then add on the cash shop on top of that. It's certainly a brave move. That's certainly a brave move from Zenimax.

Free to play after 9 months?

Due to the NDA, I can't tell you if I played in the beta.

I can tell you I uninstalled it and refused any further participation in the beta.

I won't be playing it with those kind of prices, but enough will to get all the money they can from us, then they will go free to play. 9 months is probably too short, but would not surprise 1-2 years from now

Up to 18 or so hours and 99/236 nodes complete. The game has gone from laughably easy to :banghead: difficult on a dime. Not really sure what happened, or if I'm just missing something...but where I'm at in the story, random enemies can one-shot my party members, and the boss of the area just completely wrecks my face. The boss of the previous area was literally the first time I had to do anything resembling strategizing in combat, but it still wasn't difficult. This area is just ridiculously hard. I took a break and ground out some levels for a bit to see if that will help, but...yeah, sort of frustrating. We'll see what happens when I get a chance to go back to the story, but I seem to be up to date on equipment and such, so I don't know what else I can do.

Super frustrating, because I was really enjoying the story.

Edit: Going back, the boss was a very nice challenge with some strategic changes on my part. The random enemies before him were still brutal, even after grinding a handful of levels. I'm not a very big fan of the huge, arbitrary swings in difficulty that the game seems to be displaying, but they're not game breaking.

Finally started playing Persona 4: Golden last week during the deep freeze out here when it was -50 wind chills outside.

36 hours in. Help.

I'm looking forward to this one. Has anyone played the demo?

Impressions: Neo Scavenger | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I got a PS Vita for a (very) surprising birthday present. I'm looking forward to the PS4/Vita interactivity, but outside of that, anyone got suggestions for "must have" titles?

Can't wait for Watch Dogs.

I played the demo a couple of years ago now. It must have been an early demo. It was interesting. I never lasted long.

Got an invite to be on the alpha team for Titanfall. Can't say much due to the NDA, but it looks like it is gonna be a good one.

:D

I've always wanted to put together a personal list of my most anticipated 2014 games, this seems like a good place. I'm a little partial to indie games, but let me know what you think. This includes games in early access.

1. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
2. Star Citizen
3. DayZ (Though full release probably in 2015)
4. Banished
5. MewGenics (Seems super weird. Right up my alley.)
6. Watch Dogs
7. Rimworld
8. Nuclear Throne
9. Rust
10. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

I'm probably omitting a game or two, but that's what I've got.

Depends on what genres you like. The Show is fantastic for sports. Long list of RPG's in the Vita thread if that's more of your style. Be sure to pick up all the free PS+ games as well because there's some great stuff available at no cost as well.

I think the only games that would qualify as must haves on the Vita are Persona 4 Golden and Tearaway. Gravity Rush and the Vita Uncharted game are two that might come close to that list and those 2 have been in the PS+ "Free Games" section for quite some time now.

Thanks guys. Tearaway is one I was reading about that sounds interesting. I guess I'm most interested in how the PS4 stuff works in practice.

Oh yeah!

I'm a bit surprised that they didn't mix up Titanfall a bit more. It'll make the CoD fans happy no doubt, but it's not breaking any new ground by any means judging from all the Alpha videos. Here's a couple of them.......


Titanfall Alpha Gameplay by Fran78888


Titanfall Alpha Gameplay by Fran78888

I can't say much due to the NDA, but I can assure you that Titanfall will revolutionize the way in which MBBF doesn't like the Microsoft platforms.

It's easier to flame I guess than enter a meaningful conversation on the merits of what we see in the video.

Looks like someone is back into 'sanctimonious' mode.

I think we all knew this was happening at some level, but someone has leaked the EA program that pays consumers to create positive propaganda in the social media arena. I'm guessing the 'create a BF4 video that doesn't focus on glitches' must have been a Herculean task.....

Titanfall looks amazing. No quick-scoping will be awesome.

Bad day for people who pay for positive publicity. ArsTechnica reporting on similar pay for positive press by MS during Xbox One launch window.

Stealth marketing: Microsoft paying YouTubers for Xbox One mentions [updated] | Ars Technica


Blog from the person who leaked the agreements. Pushing for an open disclosure on videos that are part of a paid ad campaign.

ReconXBL: Why I Leaked the XB1M13 Agreement

I wonder if Sony just gets people to relentlessly hype up their products on blogs and message boards, with particular emphasis on posting content slamming one of the competitors.

Though I suspect they use YouTube, too.

SI

I'm just surprised that MBBF managed to miss this story on his tireless searching of the internet for news of the new consoles.

UPDATE: PS4 error ‘ce-34878-0′ sees saves corrupted as more gamers lodge complaints | VG247

Of course, I'm sure I'm missing some angle about how this is obviously good news for the PS4 or ignoring the fact that gamers who lost saved games are probably just feeling relief that Sony isn't advertising on YouTube.

There's nothing inherently wrong with doing any of that.......as long as it's disclosed. Per the FTC, since the payment wasn't disclosed, Microsoft, EA, and anyone else involved in the pay for feedback scheme has violated the law. The FTC even has a clear example in the law that covers this situation. This same law dictates that anyone who is paid in any way to post on the internet must disclose that in all posts, blogs, or videos.




Edit: Just to clearly illustrate the difference between Machinima and MS fine print, see below. Machinima clearly stated in their deal that the participants were required to disclose their participation, while the MS contract clearly states that the user cannot disclose in any way that they were involved.

I'm amused that you think I have time to look all of that stuff.

Sony clearly states in the article that they're looking into it. Sounds like a good idea to me. I've personally not experienced it, though you have to think there's a big software update coming soon to clear up the occasional other errors I've seen in some situations while goofing around in some of the media.

Thank god you guys kept this shit out of the "non-grandstanding" thread. Also, my 94 year old grandmother appreciates the inclusion of some content she can read. It's been tough since the cataracts.

Sweet, another useful thread ruined

Please start a "my console is better than your console" thread and leave these debates in there.

:)

fwiw, the Machinima et al controversy was pretty huge stuff best I can tell, dominating the conversation for the past day or two with at least one of the very very few gaming oriented commentators I follow.

That's about as legit a bit of "video game" news as I can think of, at least as long as the topic covers stuff from the industry rather than just "OMGZ game X just came out"

Not sure how much of the subsequent bitching was aimed at that versus the introduction of the PS4 error stuff but both seem like legit topics to me.

{shrug}

Well, you did seem to have time to call stores about how many consoles they had in stock that you had zero intention of buying.

Candy Crush Saga maker King trademarks word 'candy' - chicagotribune.com


Say whaaaaaa ?

Hello?

They're also going after anyone using the word Saga in titles, starting with Stoic's recently released The Banner Saga.

King.com also going after The Banner Saga - NeoGAF

Agreed. It's a huge topic within the industry and it won't be going away any time soon.

The fascinating part about all of this is whether we see anything from Sony or other major publishers. If they've been involved as well, they might as well come out sooner rather than later because it's likely to get leaked in the coming days. I think the real shock is going to come if/when we find out that some major companies AREN'T involved.

Either way, we're likely to see a major shake-up in the video game industry.

I think it would be a nice gesture for the gaming community to raise money and send King CEO Riccardo Zacconi a gift, like tickets to Sochi for the Winter Olympics.

Oh, it gets better. They're going after the Banner Saga because the King folks have used SAGA in a bunch of their apps. They filed because of "Risk of confusion"

Because god knows when you see this..

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/...nversation.jpg

you're going to get it confused with this.

http://images.eurogamer.net/2014/usg...eenshot-01.jpg

edit: Removed img tags as they were mucking with the forum

Until today I had no idea Candy Crush had Saga in its name or that it was just a Bejeweled ripoff.

Now that part we disagree on.

I'm expecting it to be a minor, moderate at most, tempest for a bit and then people will largely forget because ... well, we expect them to do shit like this.

Concur.

But in the meantime, we will see a significant uptick in concern trolling!

SI

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/01/23/pa...r-ck2-and-eu4/

Big day of announces from Paradox.

Hearts of Iron IV, a new RPG series Runemaster, Rajas of India expansion for CK2 and Wealth of Nations for EU4.

I guess this is the first game of 2014 that I'm officially excited for.

Banished will come out before South Park, but I am so in for both of these.

Banished had caught my interest, looking forward to it a bit more after seeing video of a developer playing through a year in the game.

It's being released February 18th.

Playing the early access of Divinity: Original Sin. Still a lot of polish needed, but it is a very enjoyable game.

Reminds me a lot of the BG series, with combat similar to the new XCOM, with the ability to interact with terrain during combat, which is very cool. The camera angles are a bit bonky sometimes, but once you are used to it is not bad. Seems to have a good story as well.

Are you playing solo or co-op?

Just solo ATM, I have heard the co-op isn't as smooth as it should be right now, but definitely interested in that down the road.

Damn, 40 bucks for an early access (especially one you say is "not polished") is pretty damn steep.

That being said, I love these threads. I'm now stoked to follow that one and Banished, neither of which I'd heard of a couple of days ago.

I backed the Kickstarter at the 2 copies level, so I'm looking forward to hearing how the co-op plays. I have alpha access too, but I haven't touched it yet.

Oh damn I had seen a video for Banished awhile ago (probably the same one mckerney mentioned) and thought that it had a lot of potential. I probably won't buy it right away, it looks like the type of game that could very easily fail to live up to the hype due to any number of issues, but I really hope its good and could see spending tons of time with it if it is.

I didn't back Divinity (money was tight at the time), but otherwise I would have. But there's no reason to go early access for a RPG. None whatsoever. With some other genres, you can get a lot of fun playing the EA version. But with a quest-driven RPG, the whole point is to play through the game and that's not possible when the game isn't done.

So Underrail, Age of Decadence and Divinity are all in "wait until it's done" mode.

I'm downloading Might and Magic X: Legacy right now off Steam. Jut was released last week. Anyone tried it yet? I have enough faith in the games and Ubisoft that I'm going to play it blind, without the usual research into reviews and such - one of my favorites series has been the Might and Magic ones, both HOMM strategy, and M&M RPG. Here we go!


I'm checking out a few reviews that are out there, and the criticisms are things I love - grid-based movement or turn based combat.

One review is making me salivate... "this is very much a traditional, grid-based, party-based, turn-based RPG – but with a few twists to surprise old hands at the genre.

It’s certainly old-school in its brutality. Might & Magic X doesn’t really do much to hold your hand past the first couple of areas, instead opening up its world and its quests to you in whatever order you want to deal with them. What this means is that, if you go exploring, the early game’s wolves and giant spiders will very quickly give way to massive black knights and roving orc warbands. If you can deal with them, then hey, you can doubtless find stuff to do in whatever area you’ve blundered into – and considering you’ll get a fair few quests early on that require trawling the entire map, there’s always reason to do so.

It’s also old-school in its penchant for the odd puzzle. "

Courtesy of: January 2014 Archives - IncGamers.com

Are you kidding me? The game has a "Random Party Feature" that randomly determines who your four characters will be from the four races and 12 classes. That is awesome - I don't ever remember encountering that in a party-based RPG before. Can anyone verify that was in something they've seen? Makes a great dynasty idea!

Enjoying the game already,we'll see how it continues later on

I'm going to pick up M&M next week. I love old school rpgs.
Give us a review Abe when ya get time. :)

Looking forward to

GalCiv3
Star Citizen
Elite Dangerous

A List of Space/Sci-Fi/Fantasy Games You Can’t Miss in 2014 - SpaceSector.com

Hate you! ;)

Yup yup, will

Has there been an update for Watch Dogs?

How is Wasteland 2 missing from that list?

Beats me. I noticed Dragon's Age 3 was also missing.

Yes, please do. I haven't played M&M in a long time.. but this sounds like something right up my alley.

It didn't make my list because I don't know when it will be out. There are easily 15-20 games on my radar for this year and I only listed 3. Wasteland is on it. Dragon Age 4 is on it. So are Divinity, Folk Tales, South Park, Perfect Parallel Golf, Banished, Rimworld, the Shadowrun expansion and a bunch of others.

Of course, if I looked at last years' list I never even purchases games like SimCity - which would have been unimaginable when making my list for 2013. I was massively excited about Dragon Age 2 until I read more and more about it. Heck, I haven't even purchased FOF 7 because it doesn't look like it adds enough to justify the purchase price.

It's weird. I buy more games than I ever have, but at the same time I'm a more discriminating buyer. EU IV is a buy for me, but only once most of the DLC gets released and significantly reduced. Gal Civ 3 at one point would have been a day one buy, but not anymore (part of that is because Brad Wardell is a douchebag of the first degree). For me, Wasteland is one of those games that I'm in "wait and see" mode on. It should be a day one purchase, but there's no incentive to pre-order and I'm better off waiting.

Oh my, Perfect Parallel Golf looks yummy! Never heard of it before. I miss the days of playing Links LS. Damn I had thousands of holes played and 2 hole in ones.

Instead of giving you like 15 posts about M7M X, I will just take this post, and edit it as I find more interesting things to add:


Formal Evaluation -

I am not finding the space based movement to be an issue. Im alright with it. Some felt it wsa an auto-issue, but it feels old school, like its supposed to.

I think the graphics, thus far, are better than advertised. We'll see if that holds up as I progress.

I love little small things you would not catch if you were not a fan of the series. For example, one of the three shield crests on the wall of teh armorer's store is the shield from the Heroes of Might and Magic II game. The first towns name is Sorpigal-by-he-Sea, (the name of the opening town in Might and Magic VI is New Sorpigal). If you didnt play them then these inclusion won;t bother you, but if you did, they are nice. Another is the noise as you leave a shop - exactly same one from the Xeen stories.

Hirelings are as they are in M%M. Hire a scout for 100 gold and 2 percent of the gold found, for example.

Everything is very intuitive to old RPG conventions. Wanna pull up the inventory? Hit I. Hit J for journal and M for maps. (Small icons in teh bottom of the screen are there too if that's your preference)

Whoops? I said yes to this quest and the quest chick joined my party as a hireling for free. Ummm. Okay. Let me finish exploring the town.

In my first dungeon and combat is more challenging that normal RPGs of this sort. Very tactical. Warriors have "spells" like shatter armor attacks and such that use mana. I can cast buffs or attacks, which is best? Monsters can flank you or rear attack, so that's not good. You get the point. This was a common theme in the reviews, and I can corroborate it. I'm using potions frequently for mana and stuff.

I like the tactical nature of the game. Gust of Wind might be a joke in some games. here you push someone back a space to give them another round of missile fire. Its pretty good spell actually. You get the idea.

I died fighting the boss of the first area. Total party kill.

My hesitation on M&MX is that you have to use Uplay. I could never get Settlers 7 to work well with that on my system.

I bought it today since I was home sick. Liking it a bunch so far and does remind me of the old school M&M days.

I'm fine with the movement as well and once you learn how to battle with your party, it's really fun tactically. The cool thing is, go somewhere you shouldn't be poking your head and you're dead pretty quick. ;)

Very easy to navigate and learn for newbies, I think. It's been a long time since I've played this style and it was a snap to pick up and play.

Does u play require internet connection all of the time? I am heading out of the country for work soon and would like a good new rpg for the airplane ride and downtime.

You can play games without a connection on UPlay, though for some games there are additional features or content that require a connection. Don't have M&MX so I can't say if there's anything you won't be able to do while offline.

I've read uplay supports offline play, but I haven't tested it. Pretty much what mckerney said. :)

According to Steamboat I've now put around 7 hours into the game. It's solid. Hard. Solid. Recommend it to anybody who wants an old school RPG with modern graphics and such.

Tough game thus far.. you can't retreat once you are face to face with an enemy. I've had to reload a previous save a few times, not really because I'm outmatched, but because the tactical approach I took failed miserably.

It has a great flow and for me, has a great balance of difficulty in both game play and the interface/interaction.

M&M 1-6 are available for $2.50 on GOG for the next hour or so for fans of the series that don't have them already. I plunked it down, never played 4-6, hopefully I'll get a chance to do so at some point.

This would probably have been more suited for a thread a couple years ago, but is Dark Souls worth playing? I liked Skyrim if that helps but I don't play a ton of games like that. Looking for something cheap to pass the time.

It's nothing like Skyrim. Will you like Dark Souls? It depends on a couple of things:

1. Do you have a controller? 'Cause you'll need one.
2. How much do you like to be frustrated and what's your tolerance for it?

Dark Souls is a brutal slog through a dungeon and it focuses almost solely on the combat mechanics (which are pretty good and generally fair, but incredibly diffiult). I should have loved Dark souls because I don't mind hard RPGs. I gave DS 10 hours and gave up on it. It was certainly a challenge and probably somewhat realistic in the nature of the combat mechanics, but it was never fun. I can appreciate what it was trying to do with the mood, difficulty and combat, but when it came down to it I really don't want any part of what it's doing. I don't have the patience for it. DS is NOT for the casual gamer or someone looking for a relaxing experience.

What's the best way to describe DS? To me, it combines the difficulty (and sometimes absurdity) of MMO boss fights coupled with the execution of combat requiring console-combat twitch skills. Because that's what DS really comes down to - learning the steps of each boss fight (much like you would in an MMO) and needing the twitch skills to execute those steps.

As such, I think DS is one of those games you'll either love and spend 100 hours with, or you'll hate and want to throw the controller across the room in frustration. If you have specific questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them. Even though it wasn't for me, I would recommend it to someone if I thought it filled a niche they're looking for. And no, videos don't do it justice because it's the actual mechanics of the game that will dictate if you love it or hate it, not some video of someone playing it.

I am playing through Dark Souls now, and I'm enjoying it. I also thoroughly enjoyed Demon's Souls, their first game awhile back. I think I may have been the only one here who enjoyed it though, most of FOFC that tried it didn't like it. Dark Souls is easier, but not by a huge margin.

I'm not sure Skyrim is a good comparison really. Dark Souls is much, much more about being good at fighting strategically, and about being above average at button mashing. While there is a main story you can easily play for 20 hours without a single bit of story coming into play.

The game can be extremely hard at times, and can be very unforgiving. I have a walkthrough up nearly 100% of the time when I'm playing. I may explore an area on my own, but I always read the walkthroughs before I leave an area to see how much I missed and to decide what I want to do (I try to do everything but I'm playing a melee character so if something is super annoying and the only reward is some caster armor, I might skip it).

Because its legitimately very hard, it feels very rewarding to beat some things. Bosses generally feel truly epic, which is one of the best parts about the game.

Rhiow2 - Dark Souls Ornstein/Smough - Twitch

I was streaming my gameplay for a couple friends at the time. That video is me beating the most difficult boss I've encountered so far. That was after ~4 hours of attempts, and 1 hour of farming to upgrade my weapon. Nothing else has taken me close to that long to pass, but multiple times I have gotten stuck on a boss for an hour-hour and a half.


I dunno if that answers your question or not as to whether its worth it! I'm not sure playing it jsut to pass some time would feel very gratifying to me. Sinking some time into it has made beating the harder parts of the game feel quite rewarding.

100% agree on both counts. I'm about 50 hours in and expect I have another 20-30 to go. If I had read more on character building/stat allocation before I started I probably could have gotten to this point about 30% faster, I think I chose a build that's a little less than optimal. I'll beat it, but some stuff has probably been harder than it needs to be b/c of my choices.

Do you like reloading and replaying a sequence of a game over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until you've beaten it?

If you miss that kind of NES-era gaming/design philosophy you'll love Dark Souls. If not, don't bother.

It seems like something I'd be into if I had a lot of time off and could put a lot of focus in. Maybe now isn't the best time. Is there anything kind of like Skyrim and Fable out there? I don't mind long games but playing the same boss for 5 hours doesn't seem like something I'd like to get into right now.

Maybe something like Dragon's Dogma?

Is Dead Island any good?

Sounds like hell on Earth.

For me, it is. I can't stand the Dark Souls/Demon Souls games. I find them boring, obtuse and insanely frustrating. I know there is a story in there, but I have no idea what it is. Just walking around, dying, and killing monsters is just not enough for me to get into a game.

That said, it is beautiful and the monsters are frightening and amazingly well done. I have two very good friends of mine who love these games more than anything. One guy, who runs a video game review website, has written thousands and thousands of words on these games. Another guy, has played through Dark Souls three separate times.