Gaming

E3 has come and gone by and most of the year’s press conferences were boring (what was EA even smoking?). Having said that, some of these did grab my attention. Below are a list (in no specific order) of gameplay/trailers/things I’m looking for and thought were good. Enjoy Skyrim Very Special Edition - Hilarious and very well done The Elder Scrolls Blades - FPS RPG for mobile, play on portrait, landscape, sounds great, PvP, PvE,town building, and coming to phones, PC and VR - and all this for free.

VR and me go like chalk and cheese - ever since a kid, I’ve had motion sickness which limited me from playing most FPS games and my last attempt at VR(at IGX 2016) was a disaster - I barely could withstand 30 seconds of VR. Granted the game selection was bad - for me anyway (Driveclub on PSVR) - still I didn’t expect that bad of a reaction. With that bit of context, the reactions that flew in when I told the folks that I(well Jo, my wife, to be more precise) bought the Rift was expected.

End of the year is here and while other services are busy sending Year in 2016 report, there sparked a mini gaming report in our telegram group and I decided to compile my gaming in 2016 report. At the start of the year I had decided to finish more games this year and I guess I did a pretty decent in accomplishing this. So here’s my summary Games finished this year: # PC:

Transistor is the second game made by Supergiant Games following up on their previous game, Bastion. Bastion didn’t hold my attention long enough so I really can’t say much about it, except at first glance, Bastion seemed to have great artwork and music. Story # Transistor follows the story of Red, a singer in a city called Cloudbank who gets nearly killed. She manages to escape and acquires the Transistor - a sword-like weapon.

Gog.com(formerly Good Old Games) is part of CD Projekt Group - the publishers of the fantastic Witcher series of games. GOG started off as a firm which (re)distributed classic games without DRM and ensuring they run on modern systems. Off late, they have evolved into digital distribution - and they’re going against the likes of Steam (and to much lesser extent, Origin). Most digital distribution platforms tend to push their own brand, force you to use their clients and lock you down to their own platform - so not having all your eggs in the same basket is a good thing.

Few months ago for our second wedding Anniversary, after much discussions on what to get for each other - we decided to get a PlayStation 4. This was a rather surprising decision considering I’ve never been a console gamer(barring the SNES clones that Dad got for my Brahmopadesham) I’ve had a fairly decent gaming computer and spend a lot of time in front of the computer than a TV I really don’t like playing with controllers and pretty bad with it Few months back Subbu lent me his PS Vita loaded with.

I’ve always loved the Grand Theft Auto series, but more so as a sandbox/stress-buster than as a story line game. The first GTA game that I played was GTA II, but that was quite some time back. I don’t remember much about it - all that I recall was it it was a top down game taking a car rushing through the streets and that’s about it. I got annoyed with it and didn’t touch it.

Undertale is a game that’s been getting rave reviews from quite a few people - critics or otherwise. Some choice comments IGN: It’s hard to express just how much I adore Undertale without spoiling anything significant, but that’s what I love about it. It tells its story in such a dynamic way, and with such a great understanding of the RPG player’s mindset, that it couldn’t have been told in any other way.

Mini review/recommendation I’d written about Game Dev Tycoon on Steam: You start off as a single game dev operating out of your garage, and then slowly expand as you move to bigger office, hire more people and just grow. The game starts off in the distant past, and contains homages to major consoles & other gaming device, albeit with similar names, no doubt to avoid legal wrangles. Gameplay wise, this game will have you hooked.

What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? → Summary of "What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?" When Game Dev Tycoon (a Game Development Simulation Game) was released, its developer released a cracked version on BitTorrent simultaneously. After a certain point in the game, the cracked version would prevent the player from generating simulated revenue due to simulated piracy.