The Evil Within, and the BS Without

 Imagine you’re a police officer. Your wife and daughter have been lost to you, and your efforts to solve the case have been stonewalled. You’re already in a pretty bad mood. Then you have to go to some mental hospital to respond to a crisis. When you arrive, you and your partners quickly discover the scene of a massacre. You quickly find a survivor, a pale patient, and the doctor who is trying to help calm him down. But then your attention is drawn to a nearby security console where you witness a hooded man take out some of your fellow officers with supernatural ease. Then he appears behind you and you are out like a light.

Dragon Age Inquisition: The World is Your Burrito.

Dragon age is a relatively young series, but it is among the more unique experiences out there. Containing a story the deeply explores religion, and socio-politics, and characters that make themselves easy to love, or hate, it contains one of the more expansive story lines in modern RPGs. Best of all, the game’s story is entirely responsive to your choices. Dragon Age becomes the perfect game for discussion around the water cooler at work, because no two people are going to have exactly the same experience. Not unlike Mass Effect, the game lets you carry your decisions over from one game to the next, either by sharing your save files directly, or through the Dragon Age Keep (https://dragonagekeep.com) which cannot carry over all of your customizations, but does the best it can. Sadly, if you are playing on the PS4 or Xbox One the Keep is the only way to maintain your story.

PT Terrifying, until you figure it out

 

 Last night I finally faced my fears and went back to re-challenge the Silent Hills Playable Teaser. Oh it made me jump here and there, but now I feel bad for joining in on over hyping this thing. You see, days ago, I got freaked out and killed and had to walk away. Then, my sister Sara, who was also playing, figured out that if you do not face the ghost, she won’t kill you. I mean at all.

Contrast is short but sweet.

There aren’t than many games that think outside the box. Among my favorite outside the box games has been Portal, which took shooters and merged it with puzzlers. With a wicked sense of humor, and some wildly imaginative level design, the game was something unlike anything I have ever played before. I love games that do this sort of innovation.

Waiting for greatness-Playstation 4 at the ready

16 Gigs. That is how much RAM I am writing you from today. Imagine my disappointment in learning that my brand new PS4 only has 8 for me to play with you on, or how it’s reduced to 4 gigs because the PS4 needs 4 of those gigs for it’s Operating System. I’ll be honest, it doesn’t seem like such a huge leap over the PS3.

Ready or not here they come Pt III: Playstation 4

In a week where a government shutdown has occurred, one would expect me to heap the praise on Ted Cruz and Mike Lee for their courage under fire. However, I pretty much said my peace on the matter. Obamacare needs to go, I don’t care how it gets done, it needs to go. All the party in-fighting over procedure is obnoxious at best and will only encourage more conservative voters to sit out future elections at worst. I’ve been railing against this problem for years now, so, this week I am taking a break to finish a tech blog series I started a couple months ago when the new game systems were announced.

Ready or not here it comes part 2: X-Box One

We all know by now that the Wii-U left me feeling underwhelmed. Oddly, if you had asked me five years ago I might have been excited for the next Xbox, however, times have changed. Today Xbox 360 gets almost as much dust as my Wii-U. As time has gone on I have gradually shifted away from the 360 toward the PS3. This has been in part because the PS3 graphics are usually better on an HDTV despite the fact that most games only display in 720P and the 360 can upscale to 1080P. Colors are brighter on the PS3, and images sharper in general. The PS3 is also much more 3D friendly than the Xbox 360 but the biggest issue has been the red ring of death. I have had to replace my 360 three times. I have never had to buy a new PS3.