Fred's Opinion: The current console generation

 I have huge fears that this generation will be the last, at least for consoles. My reason for saying so is that our current generation seems to adopt the same approach that is followed by the computer- and mobile gaming industry. 

The current console generation, the eighth, is one that has the presence of the Nintendo Wii-U (released November 2012) , Sony Playstation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One (both released November 2013).

Speaking for the Playstation and Xbox, these games brought improvements to their near-decade-old predecessors. Upgraded GPU's and increased system memory allowed, basically, for more detailed in-game textures, improved lighting, larger maps, HD resolution, and a whole lot more. A few big changes were made: The PS4 was more gaming-focused than the media center which is the PS3. The Xbox One, after the release of Windows 10, became more of a media center PC and a second PC.

Now all this is normal for a new generation. But now, after almost 3 years, the industry is taking a different turn...

Now, the value of PC's and mobile devices (Android, IOS, Windows) are generally determined by the power of what's under the hood. Android, IOS and Windows devices are valued by not only their cameras and ancillary features such as network capabilities and camera features but also by their number of processors, the frequencies thereof, the graphics chip and the amount of RAM (memory) installed. Computers can either be bought pre-built or parts can be bought and a custom-build can be made. Focus is not only on the harddrive and reading speed, but also on the amount of RAM is installed, the number of cores in a processor along with the frequency thereof and also the specifications of the graphics card. All these factors have one thing in common in this context: Quality of gaming.
Quality of gaming includes the framerate of a game, the visual quality of the game that is displayed on the screen, and also the system's overall handling of the game.
As time goes by, games become more demanding and newer hardware has to be bought to keep up with those demands. Older hardware can still run the game, but with lower quality, the experience becomes less satisfying. See the example below:
A computer or device bought in year 1 will be able to easily run a game produced and released in year 1. Now, fast forward to year 4. The computers and devices of year 4 will be able to play year 4's games easily, while the computers of year 1 will also be able to play year 4 games, but the quality of gaming on a year 1 PC or device won't be the same as the quality of gaming on a year 4 PC or device.
So, what's the solution? Upgrade!
PC's are normally easily upgradeable by swopping out the year 1 graphics card with a year 4 one. While mobile devices are replaced in their entirety to satisfy much newer games. Either way, to upgrade on both platforms is an expensive mission. One can start to feel discouraged when you finally enjoy the satisfaction of properly enjoying a year 4 game with year 4 parts, after spending a fortune, just to find out that a year 5 game is coming out soon, requiring an even more demanding upgrade. Great.

Consoles never had this issue, consoles were normally designed for year 1 to last until year 6 or 7. Video game developers developed video games to meet the hardware's requirements, and not those of the software, as the case is with PC's and mobile devices. I fear that this will change in the near future...

Sony and Microsoft recently announced two new consoles, the Playstation 4 Pro and Project Scorpio. Each will provide HDR support for video games to display on televisions that support HDR. Regardless of a few differences between the two, both companies stated that the consoles of the current generation will still be able to run games that were developed for these newer consoles. Now, this isn't a generational jump at all, it's still classified as the 8th generation. The only problem is, console gamers on the normal PS4 and Xbox One will be missing out on possible framerate increases and HDR (if they have an HDR television), while the gamers with the newer consoles will enjoy these games in the best possible way. This is exactly the same situation that PC and mobile gamers face. Now, every few years, a console gamer might have to wonder whether his console will be able to meet the demands of a newer console game, or if that game will be able to run at all on his "old" console.

Personally, I am not very satisfied with this, as this isn't just a simple cosmetic upgrade as the Xbox 360 and PS3 Slim was to the 360 and PS3 Phat, this is the upgrading of hardware, which will be bound to divide the community. Consoles are expensive already, not everyone expects to upgrade their version of a console every 3 years just to meet the new hardware requirements of a video game.

I'm going to be optimistic and hope this is the only upgrade to these consoles that will occur and that a new generation will be on the horizon in, at the earliest, 2019.

Thanks for reading!

Journey - One Playstation game that's a must-play

Before I bought my Playstation 4 a while ago, I always searched for the "top" games on the Playstation 4, one title that still comes on those lists is Journey.

Journey is a very short game. Don't let its length fool you.

My "journey" was accompanied with another player who looked exactly like me. For some reason, playing with someone really made the game more emotional than I expected.

The game's atmosphere, score and visuals really stood out. After playing, I finally understand why the game received so many awards.

If you have Playstation Plus, Journey is free for the month of September 2016.

Here's a gameplay video below:

Have fun!

Battlefield 1 Open Beta (PC): First impressions

After months of waiting, Battlefield 1's Open Beta has finally arrived. The wait was definitely worth it.

Background
The game will be set during the First World War. 

Objectives and gameplay
The player can control various vehicles and approach the objective in the various ways that are available: One player can support his comrades by bombing tanks and trucks on the battlefield from his airplane, while the other ground troops are advancing towards the flags in Conquest mode or the telegrams in Rush mode. 

There are 4 infantry classes: Assault (a class designed to eliminate tanks and trucks, the spearhead of the offence), Medic (a class aimed at providing medical support and revival for injured and fallen comrades), Scout (The sniper class, which caters mostly for sharpshooters and spotters) and Support (A heavy class, which provides support by way of flanking and setting traps). All classes can be customized by the player. 
There are also various vehicle classes to choose from, mainly between light and heavy classes.

Infantry classes 
Assault is basically the new/old Engineer class of the previous Battlefield games, with the absence of the ability to repair a vehicle. These units are equipped with an automatic rifle, pistol, grenades, and anti-tank weaponry. 

The medic class is the new Assault class, where the unit is equipped with a semi automatic rifle, a pistol, grenades, medkit and bandages. 
The scout class is the old Recon class consisting of a long range rifle, pistol, a spotting scope and a grenade. 
The support class is outfitted with a light machine gun, tripwire grenades, normal grenades, a pistol and an ammo pouch. 
*Each class also has a gas mask, to counter the effects of mustard gas that can be deployed. 

Vehicles
When a player chooses to spawn inside a vehicle, they are equipped with a basic semi automatic weapon, a grenade and a wrench in order to repair the vehicle. 

Tanks are either light or heavy tanks, with the heavy tanks equipped with shells and machine gun turrets, while the light tank is equipped with a machine gun and an extra turret.

The truck is basically a buggy with an open machine gun turret, a passenger side and a driver side. 

The player also has the option of mounting a horse, equipping him with a pistol and a saber. 

Airplanes are available in the form of attack planes, heavy planes and a bomber. Dogfights are fun.

Special weapons
Special weapons are scattered across the battlefield.

The player will be able to pick up flamethrowers and anti-armor rifles while stationary gun emplacements are also found at tactical locations.

In the Sinai desert map, players will be able to take control of an armored train's turrets, while the train is moving across the map. This provides a substantial advantage to the team in whose control it falls, for it isn't very easy to destroy the train - which requires each of the six turrets to be destroyed individually

Graphics
The graphics and looks of this game, seeing as it is a beta, is insane. I was amazed by how optimized the game is. My computer didn't even heat up as much as it did while playing Witcher 3. This looks on par with Battlefront's graphics, which were also amazing.

Gameplay
The game is near completion and the entire purpose of the beta was not only to give players a chance to experience the game but also test server stability and squash a few bugs. 

I did encounter a bug where my entire team started off with no weapons at all, and another bug where me and other passengers of a light tank suddenly were left vulnerable when the tank itself vanished, leaving us running over the dunes in fear of sharpshooters.

There are a couple of balancing issues as well: One player noted that the weather effects differed between him and one of his friends, leaving him covered in a sandstorm while his friend was able to see clearly, with no sandstorm at all. Vehicles such as tanks and horseback-riders are seriously overpowered as well.

Conclusion
The beta was fun and I did enjoy it. I'm a bit cautious to buy the game just yet, with the track record of the previous Battlefield games, the game first has to see a couple of updates before I'm convinced on buying it. Another thing to keep in mind is how populated the servers will be in a month or two's time. Only time will tell.

If you weren't able to play the Beta yourself, here's a gameplay video I did below:

Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain (PS4) Review

I'll have to admit that MGSV Phantom Pain was my first game that I've played in the MGS series. As a newcomer, this game blew me away.

I followed the advice of the friendly people on the /r/metalgearsolid subreddit and decided to check a few Youtube videos to familiarise myself with backstory. With that said, the game's story wasn't too hard to catch up on. 

MGS, with all its flaws, has to be one of the games that I've played recently that was a lot of fun and challenging. I'm currently busy with my "second" playthrough, hoping to complete all the missions with the S-rank. When thats done, I'll be hoping to play for a third time in order to complete the optional objectives of each mission. 

With that said, here goes my short review of the game...

Story

The game's story is not one to be understood by a person that is completely new to the series. If you haven't played the previous games, do yourself a favour and watch a couple videos on Youtube explaining the events that occurred up to Phantom Pain. 

The game's storyline has a mixed theme of vengeance and mistrust with a lot of tense moments. The events in the game really acts as a piece of the "bigger picture" of the MGS series. 

I will happily give Phantom Pain a 3/5 for its story. It has a few gaps here and there, but that is also likely due to the fact that the game is released as an incomplete product, as there are a few missions that wasn't included in the final version

Gameplay

The controls of the game aren't the same, yet not too different, from the controls of Call of Duty, for example. I did not find it hard to familiarise myself with it.

You get the ability to recruit your own private army, and within that army you divide its personnel within various divisions (Support, Intel, Research and Development, Base Development, Support) Your recruits come straight from the battlefield, either as volunteers or as captured enemies. The strength of each division unlocks new weapon, base and player upgrades. Intel, for example, assists you in the field by notifying you of enemy positions.

Other than the recruits that you have at your disposal, you also gain the assistance of buddies. I'm not going in too much detail here. Buddies directly assist you in the field, either as a means of transportation, locating enemies or even taking out enemy outposts. 

The game has its currency of GMP, but also economic resources needed to develop and resupply weapons and gadgets. 

The game awards you for approaching missions by using stealth, but you can also approach each mission with a full-on assault. The stealthy approach, however, takes a lot of time, you have to study your enemy's movement, assess possible points of entry and mark important targets and resources. You have the choice of either knocking out an enemy or killing him, knocking them out gives you the ability to fulton them back to your base, along with any vehicles, resources or weapons you may find. 

The gameplay is vast and cannot actually be described in full detail. Just know that a lot of effort has been put into this and that it really shows. I give the gameplay aspect a 5/5

Graphics

Yeah, graphics, the center of attention. 

Characters in cutscenes look very glossy sometimes, but are highly detailed. Explosions look and sound very real. The detail of a weapon is good. 

I have to mention that Kojima always had an appeal for female characters with little in his games, so just a caveat. 

Big Boss was also done very well, that piece of shrapnel in his head bothers me a bit, but hey that's the gaming world for you! 

The cutscenes of the game really makes the game look like an animated movie very very close to a live-action one.

I'd give it a 5/5

Conclusion

As a first time player of Metal Gear Solid, Phantom Pain really blew me away. The gameplay was very detailed with a lot of focus on the little things like the enemy's reactionary measures to your play style. Graphics-wise, this game looks damn amazing, I have not seen a low-resolution texture once in this game, with the lighting also playing a huge role in various scenes and locations. The one thing that bothered me was the game's storyline for the fact that a substantial part of the story was never released, due to the drama that Konami had with Kojima, which led to his departure.  

Other than the few flaws from the story, Metal Gear Solid The Phantom Pain was a tough competitor for its other titan of a rival, in the form of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt.

I'd give this game a strong 9/10 and strongly recommend anyone to play it!

Mortal Kombat X (PS4) Review

Mortal Kombat X is a good addition to the franchise that has been going strong for two decades

I've been a fan of the Mortal Kombat series for as long as I remember. 

Growing up in the late 90's and early 00's, I was able to play MK 1, 2 and UMK on console and MK 4 on PC. Then came Deadly Alliance, Deception, Shaolin Monks and Armageddon, all titles that I've played on the PS2. Things were going a bit tough financially for Midway, the original developers of the series, so the series was kept on ice for a couple of years. I resorted to replaying all the classics all over again. 

Come 2011, I started seeing trailers of a new Mortal Kombat, you can imagine how excited I was when I heard the news. I finally got a chance to play it with my brothers on the 360, how fun was it to see a reboot of the classic Scorpion v Sub Zero match in Shang Tsung's arena. I loved the move Netherrealm studios made by redoing the story in an alternate manner, rather than just releasing remastered versions of the older games. The storyline was very good as well. 

Come 2015, 4 years after MK 9 (as it was abbreviated). At first I was a bit skeptic at the content of the game, it seemed like the roster of characters was changed entirely with the addition of new characters like Takeda, Cassie Cage and others. The game also seemed to have a very, very dark visual theme to it, which also wasn't very convincing. The whole reason why I love the newer releases is the fact that they depict the original sequence of events in an alternate manner, while retaining core characters. After watching a couple gameplay videos, I was satisfied to see that people like Raiden, Jax, Quan Chi and others were still in the mix. 

I was lucky to get a copy of MKX along with my PS4, with a code to download Goro as well. So let's start off with my review:

Visuals

The game is running at 60fps and looks so beautiful. The level of detail in the environments and characters are insane, which shows why it was not possible to port this to the 360 and PS3. 

The fatalities, X-ray attacks and brutalities are done with attention to detail. For example, doing an X-ray on Kano will show a human skeleton suffering a lot of damage, while using it on a character such as Reptiel, will show a green skeleton suffering at the hands of Sub Zero's ice spike. 

Gameplay

The execution of moves and combos are complemented by the higher framerate, resulting in a buttery smooth experience. Sometimes a little button mashing is done, with the end result of performing some kind of brutal beatdown coupled with using an innocent monk or old lady as an object to throw at your opponent. The use of the environment in the various combat areas are very cool. 

There is also the addition of the various towers, including the Test Your Might, Test Your Luck and Towers that are updated frequently with contextual real-time events like St Patrick's Day, where the fights in these towers have random match boosts which is an advantage or a disadvantage. 

The roster of characters is a hit and a miss. It's a hit with the new variation system which splits one character's moveset into 3 different variations, each combined with the character's general moveset and a special moveset especially for that variation. The amount of alternate costumes available also provide for a cosmetically refreshing experience. 

The game is a semi-miss with its roster: While I do enjoy the presence of characters like Takeda, Shinnok, and others, I do miss the characters that were present in the MK4 era, such as Reiko, Kai and Fujin. Luckily there are some pretty sweet characters available as DLC (or in the new Mortal Kombat: XL) in the form of Leatherface, Tanya, Triborg (a combination of the cyber-ninjas), Alien, Jason and a couple of others. 

The Krypt has gotten a pretty big revamp, with a couple scary moments every now and then, but again, I enjoy wandering around in there. 

The absence of tag team combat is something which I miss. The game has also gotten a new Factions feature, where the player joins one of five factions in the MK lore, and by completing various objectives within the game, the player accrues points for his/her specific faction, contributing to a global score which determines which faction is the winner at the end of a certain time period. 

Playing the Android/IOS version of MKX also unlocks additional content for the console version, which is pretty nice. 

Story

The storyline starts off with the aftermath of the events of MK9, which would be somewhere between MK3 and MK4, with MKX ending basically where Deadly Alliance started. It is a very interesting storyline, but can be completed in a couple of hours. I'm not leaving any spoilers, all that I can say the story is of good quality.

Online

I have had this game for four months and I'm still not able to play any online. So due to the unavailability of online gameplay, I won't be reviewing any of this.  

Conclusion

So I've dealt with three aspects, visuals, gameplay and story. The visuals of MKX is very appealing and is a showcase of what can be done on the newer generation of consoles. Gameplay is very smooth, with a few bugs here and there, with a good-but-not-perfect roster, various alternate costumes and character variations. The story brings in new characters, yet also shows other sides of original characters that you would not have expected to see, yet very short in terms of gameplay. 

Mortal Kombat X is a strong to the franchise that has been going strong for more than two decades. What makes it so cool is that you can pick it up after not playing it for a while and still enjoy it, you can challenge your friends in a match or ten or just play it to unwind a bit. As my first game on the PS4, this gave me a pretty good first impression of what gaming on the PS4 is like.  

Well, there's my first review done and dusted. Hope you enjoyed it! 

Have a nice day!

Cheers

Fred

My first trophy on the PS4

After being absent from the Playstation part of the gaming world for a while...
I made a return via the PS4 

I remember 11 November 2015 so well... 

I was studying that whole week for International law. After acing the exam, I immediately went to the local Incredible Connection to get my console bundle that included a beautiful black PS4, one controller, 3 months PS+ and a copy of Mortal Kombat X.

I was so excited when I finally got it. Taking the step into the next generation of  console gaming, saying goodbye to the Gen-7 Xbox 360 and saying hello to the Gen-8 PS4. 

When I opened the packaging, everything looked so sleek. The texture of the controller, the line of light on top of the console, the sound of the interface when starting up, so perfect. Then came MKX...

I started the game only to see the epic trailer scene between Scorpion and Sub Zero, I immediately got amped up. Then came the gameplay, for a moment I was in awe with how beautiful and detailed the characters, environment and moves. Smooth framerates, excellent shadows and light and some bloody action. I was in love.

With all this experience of the new generation, I was still busy with the fight where I can only fight with Scorpion and Sub Zero. All good fights come to an end, I am at that point where I'm about to execute a move following the classical "Finish him!", I quickly paused and checked the combo for Sub Zero's finisher, and BAM there it was, an epic fatality sequence leaving me in excitement, and being awarded with my first PS4 trophy. This meant the start of a new era of gaming for me, but one that I will enjoy.

After this, I got other titles such as Black Ops III, Minecraft and Fallout 4. More details to come! 

PS: Here's a bonus video of me getting owned by Goro on medium. Enjoy...

Have a good day!

Cheers

Fred

Hi Everybody!

Hello!

I'm Fred and I'll be hosting this brand new blog dedicated to all my gaming adventures on the PC and PS4!

I'll be posting personal reviews about games that I have played, screenshots and videos of epic wins and fails, tips and tricks and sometimes news and updates.

I hope you will enjoy my content and that it will be an awesome experience for you :)

You'll see my first post very soon!

Cheers

Fred