Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons review - A short, but a much meaningful journey than most

I got this game a month ago, but with a list of ps3 games I've yet to play and soon PS4 being added to the list, this game somehow got lost in the pile. The list will only grow thanks to how PS plus giving away games like crazy, I needed to pick up the pace, I started with this game and ended with a single disappointed...how on earth did I neglect such a beautiful game?

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a story about how two brothers travel across mountains, valleys , sea and even battles to save their dad while putting their own lives at risk.  You control the two brothers using left and right stick independently. Which is odd and can be hard to get used to, but, it really makes perfect sense when you consider the theme of the game and is just one of the many examples of how the gameplay mechanics actually plays to the story which is incredibly rare. The gameplay is mostly puzzle based, not hard but still very satisfying.

The journey was short, but it was beautiful and most importantly, meaningful. Fantastic game, please play it if you haven't done so yet.

Batman Arkham: Origins Review - Lonely is The Night, Your Demons Come to Light

Going into the game with the a new developer at the helm of this legendary franchise, I was extremely nervous, as Arkham games captured not only the essence of the Dark Knight himself, but also the dark sinister world in which he casts his shadows. I was expecting the developer will stick to the comfort zone and will follow closely if not completely copy the blueprint of the gameplay and structure perfected by Rocksteady (the developer of the previous two Arkham games) while coming out of the comfort zone with a captivating origin story that drops the first dominoes towards the build up to the next two games in the chronological sense.The good news is they indeed managed to keep the solid gameplay intact, in fact they didn't make any changes to the fight and gadgets, just with different variations of the same gadgets used in Arkham City like Glue Grenade over Freeze Grenade. There was a much greater emphasis on Batman's detective skill-set. As as you found more evidence, the crime scene slowly builds and is illustrated in a hologram. You sometimes had to rewind, pause to a specific spot to find a clue that you might have missed. It was really cool, and perhaps the only new thing this games does that was not done in the previous game. Although, I wish it was much more deeper and instead of just looking at the spot and pressing the 'X' button to scan and tag. Oh well, there is always the next Arkham game right?

So I never expected the developer to re-invent the bat wheel for the series, that sort of task is best left to Rocksteady and good thing they didn't as results might have been catastrophic. However, I wished they had done better with the narrative flow of the game as well as the plot. The story felt disjointed and felt like different pieces of awesomeness attached to one another in hopes of making one giant awesomeness instead of melding pieces of narratives that complement each other and make one big awesome narrative like Paul Dini did with the previous two games. I was hoping the Christmas background of the game would add to the atmosphere, but apart from some radio of random christmas songs and some Christmas decorations here and there...it hardly felt like a Christmas Eve, sooner than later it felt just like another long night for Batman. The Another thing that caught my eye was the city itself. The game is supposed to take place in Gotham City, or some part of it. However it hardly feels any different from Arkham City. With virtually no one out in the street instead of hundreds of thugs and random police here and there. This further kills the Christmas vibe, seriously I don't care if it is snowing like crazy, people go out during Christmas Eve, at least some do. At times I felt like I was back to Arkham City, or even worse, considering from the number of thugs out on the streets and rooftops far outnumbering the country's soon-to-be biggest criminally Infested Zone.

The story is not at all bad, where Arkham Asylum was a great batman story, Arkham City later became perhaps one of the best (personally the best) Batman story I've witnessed; Arkham Origins comes out short and tends to be a good story. Then again, it is sometimes hard to blame the Warner Brothers Montreal because the legacy left by the first two games were so great that I doubt any developer would succeed leaping over or even matching it.

The new voice actors did a solid job and overall the performance of voice actors were on par with the previous games. I thought I would dearly miss the Conroy/Hamill duo of Batman and Joker. I did, but the performance of the actors were amazing, especially Troy Baker's Joker, the way he captured the insanity, the horror and the comedy of Joker only Mark Hamill previously understood.

I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, I will post my impressions as soon as  I dive into it.

So there you have it, its a very good game and a worthy game to add to the Arkhamverse. If the previous two games were masterpieces from a renowned artist. This game comes out as a masterpiece from the artist's best student. The student will only get better as long as he/she comes out of the comfort zone more often.

Sidenote: Why on Earth did the developers switch the controls from shoulder buttons to the triggers in his game? They blatantly copied the xbox 360 controls instead of keeping it how it was on the arkham city. The springy R2/L2 of Dualshock 3 makes quick firing gadgets feel terrible. Really hope they patch it up to revert it back to the way it was.

Ladies...you might wanna thank Rock n Roll

People don't understand the huge significance of rock n roll notice a very very different change in clothing, especially for women from 70s and onwards before clothing was very closed, conservative.

 Women's fashion during the in 1960s

But during the 70s, clothes became smaller and more revealing with the rebel era. They expressed rebellion with smaller clothes and which caused a problem with the congress at one point rock n roll artists attended and fought back on the meeting wearing those type of clothes the congress thought they had this in the bag and people who played rock n roll were illiterate but, man they were wrong.

Women's Fashion during the 1970s, welcome Rock n Roll!

Fast forward: we have women's clothes like bikinis, mini skirts and what not it all started back in 1971.
The point I'm trying to make? Well...rock n roll is beyond just mere music. It is the invisible freight train that demolishes anything that stands between creative expression through clothes, art, thoughts and incinerates political propaganda. Almost every thought and struggles of modernization stems back to it. Rock n Roll is all about conquering one's fears and then uniting together in helping to change the world for the better, not just for yourself, but more importantly for the others. It stands for the ultimate, uncompromising FREEDOM.

Unshackling the Eagle

Seeing America's problems and witnessing it crumble under extreme weight of debt makes me sad. I remember a kid who went to US in 1994. He didn't know what made United States so special and awesome, he just felt this is where dreams come true.

The problem with America is that it forgot the values it stood for, the values that built the image of the great American Dream. Those strong ideals of which the country stood for has long been absent.

Is it too late? I don't believe so. American government and most importantly, the people of America must rise up and show the world that it is just a temporary relapse, the values are not forgotten and eventually the country will slowly heal. The influence is still there, so when America heals both physically and mentally, it will radiate across the globe as well.

What does Grand Theft Auto experience means to me?

Grand Theft Auto means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For me personally, it is the insane amount of detail and work Rockstar puts into bringing the cities full of life is just insane. I always wanted to stay at NYC, but unfortunately never could as of now.

With GTA IV, I can just close my eyes and stand in the middle of game's version of Times Square called Star Junction, I feel I'm instantly transported back to Times Square.

Open World games have massive scope compared to linear games, and as with pretty much everything in life, there are compromises. The compromise comes in the form of detail which gets lost in favor of large worlds. But...here is the odd thing about Rockstar Games and GTA series: The worlds are getting bigger and bigger sure, but their attention to detail is actually been magnified dramatically. With GTA V, Rockstar reached a macroscopic level of detail which can take head on against most linear games out in the market today and even surpass them. This trend likely will continue by the time the PS4/Xbox One generation of consoles hit, we might be able to play in a complete state of America with microscopic attention to details.

Gone Home - mini review

Not a single shot is fired, not a single blood is spilled and it over in 2 hours. Yet...in just 2 hours the game tells far more story and creates much more compelling characters than most videogames in their 20 hour run.
Gone Home was amazing experience.

It illustrates how far we have come in the videogames industry. Once it was all about scoring the most points or reaching the finish line; now it is about experiencing the lives of individuals and see the world through their lens. The game shows the might of interactive story telling where other entertainment media falls short in delivering.

Gran Turismo 6 demo impressions: The interface

So I played a few rounds of GT 6 academy demo the PS3. I know the fact that GT 6 demos, unlike most demos, drastically reduce the visuals to make the download size small. So putting aside the visuals, I was more interested in how they changed the interface. One of the reasons I stopped playing GT5 was how horrible the interface was.

Polyphony Digital are the masters of crafting realistic cars, track and authenticity. Yet they fail horribly when it comes to interface. To many of you this might mean that I am just nitpicking. GT games are huge with laundry list of items and features to get around. Without a proper interface, going through those items, heck even knowing about their existence is impossible. So a good interface is a huge part of any videogame, especially complex video games. The original GT 5 had an interface which looked like it came straight from a web page from the late 90s and even mimicked the 56K era appropriate slowdowns during navigation. Now looking at the interface of GT 6 demo, not much has changed. Although it is smoother and perhaps a bit faster now.

Hopefully its due to the demo and they didn't implement the revamped interface. And for God's sake please remove the mouse pointer from the navigation!