Top Ten Games of 2015

The year has once again come to an end, which means I need to tell you what my top ten games of the year were. As always I will start at ten and work my way down to one. This year was savage, because there were a ton of great games that came out. I had a super hard time deciding what to put on my list and where to put it.

Keep in mind that these are my personal opinions.

10. Disgaea 5

I love the Disgaea series for its weird characters and insane grinding. However, Disgaea 5 just didn't do it for me like I thought it would. I still had a ton of fun, but the story dragged on for so long that I had lost interest by the time I got to the post game. The overall story was bland and predictable, but the characters held it up.

I may return to it again soon for some more leveling goodness.




9. Yakuza 5

After playing Yakuza 3 I fell in love with the franchise. The combat is a modern take on old school beat em' ups, and feels silky smooth. It's a ton of fun to run around Japan and beat the living hell out
of any thug that tries to take you on. The story in this one was hit or miss for me. Some parts were amazing, while other parts felt like needless filler. The good parts of the story definitely outweighed the bad though. The ending alone was worth playing through the entire game.



8. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

Monster Hunter isn't the most accessible game, but 4 brings it much closer to where it should be. The fact that the game teaches you the basics now is a huge improvement. On top of that there are now more weapons and monster variations than ever before. Being able to jump and mount monsters also adds a whole new layer to an already mechanic heavy game. It's a dense franchise, but it rewards those who are willing to put in the time and learn.




7. Shovel Knight

Recently many games have been trying to capitalize on nostalgia by having a "retro" feel. Shovel Knight is one of the few games in this vein that feels genuine. It captures the retro feel while still managing to feel and play like a modern video game. It's challenging, but not so challenging that I felt like I needed to snap my controller in half!






6. Inazuma Eleven GO Chrono Stones

Anime soccer is my jam. I stream Chrono Stone every Wednesday and I still enjoy it. It's the Inazuma Eleven I love but with a lot more characters, moves, and general content. The story was insane in the best possible way, and some cool new characters were introduced. It doesn't do much to change the formula, but it adds enough content to justify its existence.




5. Splatoon

I love when Nintendo is willing to take risks. Somehow Splatoon manages to make me have fun in an online multiplayer focused game. Shooting and swimming around in ink is just plain fun. It helps that you don't have to chase down and shoot your opponents too. Even someone like me can aim at the floor and cover it with ink to contribute to the team. On top of the gameplay Splatoon is oozing with style. The clothing and music are incredible.




4. Rock Band 4

Rock Band 4 didn't really change much from its predecessor. In fact, it actually lost a lot of popular features. This is understandable considering that Harmonix doesn't have a major publisher behind them anymore. The fact that they were able to re-license almost all of the previous DLC for the franchise is bananas.

The reason this is on my list is because I have fun when I play Rock Band. I get together with my friends every Friday and rock out.



3. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The Phantom Pain isn't much of a Metal Gear Solid game. Sure you play as Big Boss, but the insane story feel and long cinematics are all but gone. In their place is a game that plays very well. In a shocking turn of events the Phantom Pain plays like a modern video game and allows for a lot of possibilities. Anything you can think of trying you'll probably be able to do.

There is so much attention to detail in this game it's shocking. It's not hard to see why the game cost Konami so much money. They didn't think it was worth it, but I certainly did. Somehow Kojima was able to take the craziness missing from the story and implant it into the gameplay. This is a perfect way to end an amazing franchise!


2. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The world that CD Projekt Red manages to create in the Witcher 3 is vibrant and well realized. I've been getting sick of open world games for years now, but somehow the Witcher managed to make me forget all about that. It helps that when you come across a quest it matters. Even if you don't get a good reward the story itself is generally worth the trouble. That might be my favorite part of the game. There are things and people in every part of the world. It doesn't feel like the desolate wasteland that most open world games have become. Very few things you find will be happy though, because the world of the Witcher is beyond grim.

Combat is challenging when playing on the higher difficulties. You can't just go in and swing your sword around like a fool. You need to prepare potions and douse your sword in oils in order to take down monsters. Everything meshes together to make a cohesive package.


1. Undertale

When I finished Undertale I didn't know what to think. It took me a couple of days to realize that I loved almost everything about the game. Never before have I become so attached to characters in a
video game in such a short time. Undertale can be 100% completed in around six hours. Somehow that is enough time to feel like you're friends with fictional characters, There was a moment in Undertale that made me tear up, and there were multiple moments where I laughed out loud. It's rare for a video game to make me feel such real emotions and that's why Undertale is so special to me.

The game does a great job at subverting what you know about the RPG genre. Sure you can go berserk on an enemy and kill it, but you could also talk to it until it doesn't want to fight anymore. You don't have to kill anything and that's cool!

Above all else though, I will remember Undertale and that's the highest praise I can possibly give a game.

Podcast Episode 9 - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The 9th episode of the podcast is here! See, I told you it was going to go monthly... Yes, I did wait until the last day of the month, but it totally exists. I pretty much ramble about Metal Gear Solid for about an hour, so if you're into that check it out!

You can listen to it here, on the Game Time With Manny page on Soundcloud, or subscribe on Itunes!

Review of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

This review is based on my experience with the PS4 version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Note: There are spoilers for the end of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes in this review.

Score: 5/5

Metal Gear Solid has been one of the most iconic franchises in video gaming since Solid Snake infiltrated Shadow Moses Island on the PS1 in 1999. However, like all good things the franchise has seemingly reached its conclusion. Over the past few months fans have been treated to news of series creator Hideo Kojima having issues with Konami, and saw his name slowly being removed from any marketing related to the game, even the game's case. Rightfully so, this had many fans worried about how well Metal Gear Solid V would turn out. As with most things Kojima has done the wait for his theoretical swan song has been trying, but it was sure worth the wait. This is quite possibly the final time we'll see Big Boss outside of a pachinko machine.

It's funny, because the Metal Gear franchise has often been derided for having more instances of the player watching as opposed to playing. In both the Phantom Pain and its prologue Ground Zeroes there are very few cutscenes. They're made up almost entirely of gameplay. On top of the new found focus on gameplay the controls have been updated. Previous games in the franchise were perhaps too ambitious, which often lead to buttons doing too many things depending on the context. It often felt clunky. The Phantom Pain actually plays and controls like a modern video game, which took me by surprise. No longer did I find myself fighting against the controls to complete a task. It helps that its all fairly simple. All you really need to do is aim, shoot, reload, sneak, and switch weapons. The controls are set up similar to how they used to be where circle is on reload, but you can change the controls to essentially be the same as modern first person shooters if you prefer that style.

I got a whole lot of use out of this assault rifle.

It's made even better by the fact that you can actually use many different weapon types and not really be chastised for it. In previous Metal Gear Solid games your rank during a mission was based almost entirely on stealth and the time it took you to complete the mission. Now you can kill literally everyone, and as long as you do it well and fast enough you can still achieve an S rank. This means that I experimented with weapon types I would normally never use. I went into tons of scenarios armed with a rocket launcher and a shotgun and actually did quite well. On top of that enemies with guns aren't infuriating to deal with. As long as you don't stand directly in the line of fire you can make it out of most situations. Big Boss has regenerating health, so gone are the days of scavenging for rations and taking a knee in battle to use them in order to heal. It makes Big Boss feel like much more of a badass than he previously did, which fits his persona in the story.

The Phantom Pain takes place immediately following the ending of its prequel, Ground Zeroes. Big Boss returned to Mother Base to find it swarmed with enemy soldiers. Before he could set down and defend his home his helicopter transport is blown out of the sky. The Phantom Pain begins with our protagonist in a hospital bed waking up from a nine year coma. The doctor explains that he's in rough shape. He's missing an arm, and has a piece of shrapnel stuck in his forehead that won't ever be able to come out. Since Metal Gear is all about the story I don't want to give away too much. I'll say that you get out of the hospital, and start building a brand new Mother Base in order to get revenge on the organization that destroyed everything Big Boss has been working towards.

Miller wants revenge for what happened in Ground Zeroes.

The rebuilding of Mother Base is actually a large component of the game, which is very similar to the building of Mother Base in the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. On missions every soldier you encounter has a set of stats and you can recruit them to your cause. All you have to do is put them to sleep, or beat them down with your fists, and you can Fulton them out of the area. Once the soldiers make their balloon exit they will be assigned to an area of Mother Base based on what their highest stat is. The better the units you have in each area the more you can develop for Big Boss to use in combat. Development starts off with no wait time and very low requirements, but the game quickly ramps up so that you need to scrounge for units constantly and then have to wait anywhere between 18 minutes and 5 hours for your research to finish. This sounds tedious, but there's something very satisfying about strapping a balloon to every soldier, animal, and vehicle you see. Development time becomes a non-issue as well, or at least it did for me, because I was so engrossed in playing the actual game that I would completely lose track of time. The main problem ends up being resources, because eventually you need insane amounts of them and the world doesn't necessarily always provide them.

This is where the online mode comes into play.You build an FOB (Forward Operating Base), which is essentially another Mother Base. You can then invade other player's FOBs and steal their resources. I only did this a few times, because I kept getting wrecked. You can deck out your FOB with all kinds of security measures like drones, traps, and security cameras. If you're online when someone tries to infiltrate your FOB you will be notified and you can get into the fray and take them out. It's a cool mechanic, but I often found myself being invaded by people who were much better equipped than I was, so there was no way for me to stop them. If I ever did get good enough then I could retaliate and take back everything I lost, but I was never able to successfully do that. It helps that once you get invaded you can not be invaded again for another 6 hours, so my resources were not constantly being stolen. People were coming at me with things I didn't even know existed and were using tactics I had never seen before, which made me realize that the game will let you do just about everything you can think of and pull it off.

Expect to be looking at this menu a lot. Upgrading Mother Base is very important.

I'm not kidding, almost everything you can think of to do the game will probably let you do. Want to have your horse poop in the road so a jeep spins out on it? You can do that. Do you want to put C4 onto a jeep, Fulton it away, then blow it up right next to a helicopter? You can do that. Have you always wanted to hide in a Porta Potty and play poop sounds from your phone to make guards suspect you less? You can do that too. When I say the options are limitless, I'm being mostly serious. There are so many things the game will let you do that are very surprising. There is detail in things that there shouldn't really be any detail in. On top of that the open world lives and breathes in a way that I never would have expected. Enemies contact other bases, and are aware of things that are happening outside their general field of view.

With the release of The Phantom Pain, Metal Gear as a franchise did a 180 degree turn from how it used to be. Gone are the forty minute cutscenes filled with anime craziness. They've been replaced by shorter scenes that are still crazy, but they're much fewer and far between. All of that craziness has been transplanted into the gameplay. You're much more likely to see something nuts while running around the world than you are in a story sequence. I never would have expected that the series could evolve so much, but I'm glad that it did. Initially it feels like a lot of the Metal Gear charm is gone, but it just takes some getting used to. It's still a Hideo Kojima game, so you know you're in for a wild ride.

Big Boss and his clones have become iconic characters in the world of video games.

I'm willing to make the bold claim that The Phantom Pain is one of the best action games ever produced. It has a scope that's unparalleled in video games, and everything comes together to make a cohesive package. Sure, there are some things I could nitpick, but none of them stand out enough to tarnish this otherwise great entry into the Metal Gear franchise. Sure it doesn't tie up the story of the whole franchise with a pretty bow, but I didn't really expect it to. That's what I like about Kojima. He likes to keep the fans guessing. I think it's great that the final entry in such an iconic franchise is fresh and fun as opposed to being buried under the weight of its predecessors design and mechanics. If you have a platform that you can play The Phantom Pain on, then I highly recommend you do so. You will not regret it.

Game Time - September 2015

September was a month of many releases, but I focused my time on three very good ones.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain kicked off the month of the 1st. Honestly this is where I spent almost all of my gaming time for the month. I completed the story, and then proceeded to do every single side mission available in the game. When all was said and done I clocked in close to 70 hours, which is pretty crazy.

Then on the 11th Super Mario Maker came out. Initially I was going back and forth on my decision to buy it. In the end I decided that Mario was the first video game I ever played and I needed to buy it even if I wouldn't play it much. Just as I suspected I haven't played it a whole bunch, but it's still a super cool game.

At the very tail end of the month on the 29th the spectacular rhythm game Persona 4: Dancing All Night graced the Vita with its presence Do you like Persona 4? Do you like dope jams and hot remixes? If so, then this is the game for you! It has all of those things!

This month was action packed. and October is even more action packed! I need to mentally prep myself, so it's time to get all my thoughts on these games so I can fill my head with brand new thoughts! It's Game Time!

Super Mario Maker

I tend to not get much play time out of games that are based around me as a player creating content, and Super Mario Maker is no different. That doesn't mean it's a good game, it just means that it isn't necessarily for me. Sure I can play other people's levels, but that only gives me so much satisfaction. I say Super Mario Maker isn't exactly a game for me, but it is amazing. I think Nintendo has done an amazing thing with this game, and I hope they continue down this path.

People make Super Mario ROM hacks all the time on the Internet. People have gotten so good at Mario that they need something else much harder to conquer. That's something that has been made much easier with the tools available in Super Mario Maker. You can use physics sets, mechanics, and backgrounds from original Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U. Each plays a bit differently, and obviously looks different. What's amazing is that Nintendo didn't really skimp on the tools. There are so many options for you to make a level, and they're super intuitive. In fact, I'd say this game is the first proper use of the Wii-U's touch pad.

Oh god! So many Wigglers!

When making a level you start with a blank slate that's laid out in front of you in a grid. Each thing you can place takes up one square. You just tap the thing you want to put in the level and drag it to where you want it. It's that simple. Anyone could theoretically make a Super Mario Maker level and that's super cool. It's even better that it has everything you know and love, but the ability to make it ten times more crazy. Take a Bullet Bill launcher for example. They're simple enough. All they do is shoot in a straight line. If you pick one up and shake it around though things get super crazy. The launcher then turns red, and the Bullet Bills home in on the player. That's nuts! You can do this kind of thing for many of the place-able blocks in the game. It adds a cool new element while keeping everything long time players are used to.

My issue with the game comes down to the fact that even though it's easy to make a level a lot of the levels in the game aren't good. Very few people are out there making cool levels that could be in an actual Mario Game. Most levels have so much shit in them you just have to pray that the randomness of the level is on your side and you can actually make it through. Then there are the levels that are actually cool, but they're so hard that you have to try them 800 times before you fully understand what to do. I just want to chill and see cool designs. I don't want to have to rage every single level I'm playing. Once again this is just a fault for me. I know tons of people out there like the impossible challenge, but that's not what I come to a lot of games for, especially Mario. It's even more frustrating to me that the game has become so prolific on Twitch. Whenever I watch anyone play it's them playing the same level for hours on end, which just really sucks.

Most people don't understand that sometimes less is more...

I actually think the game is a masterpiece. The creation tools are very deep, yet so simple to pick up. Even if I don't see a lot of levels I like, there are tons of new ones being created every day. Most of them are super cool and complex and they'll only get better as time does on.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is ridiculous in almost every way. It cost $80 million dollars to make and even then, the final mission was cut from the game. The cost and time it took to make it paid off though, because it is unlike anything to come before it, and may be one of the greatest action games ever made. I don't say this kind of thing lightly, and I sincerely mean it. The Phantom Pain comes together in a way that I never would have expected. It plays well, tells an interesting story, and has more emergent gameplay than almost any other video game. The options for how you can approach every situation are almost limitless. In most games you think of a cool thing to try, and then it doesn't work. In the Phantom Pain I had almost no situations like that. If you can think of something to try, it almost always will work.

At first I didn't know what to make of this game. It has Metal Gear in the title, but it doesn't necessarily feel like a Metal Gear game at first. Metal Gear Solid has always been a third person stealth game, which is loaded to the brim with super long cutscenes and a severely convoluted plot. People often criticize the franchise for having more of the player watching than actually playing. The Phantom Pain takes a different approach in that it's almost all gameplay. Cinematics happen very few and far between. Near the end they happen much more frequently, but you have to play a lot of the game to get to that point. I personally had no problem with that.

You can Fulton sheep. YOU CAN FULTON SHEEP!

It's odd, because recently I've been hating most open world games. They have bad quest writing with little rewards, or nothing to actually do in the open world. The Witcher 3 made me rejoice when it had meaningful quests, and in the Phantom Pain there's a lot to do and it's all fun. Seriously, I did all 157 side missions. 157! That's a whole lot of Metal Gear. Most of the side missions involve just killing people, or extracting certain things, but you can approach it in so many ways that it's incredible. For example in most stealth games, previous Metal Gear games included, once you got caught sneaking around you were screwed. That is no longer the case. If you want to go ham and mow down everyone in your patch that's totally viable. If you want to try to hang around and beat everyone with your fists, that works too. Why not call in a supply drop of a jeep and ride off into the sunset? The world is your oyster. It makes even mundane mission tasks, because you never know what's going to happen.

The way the open world works is bananas as well. Everything is intertwined in a way that I never thought possible in an open world game. It actually reacts to your play style. So if you always go for head shots, then enemies will eventually be wearing way more helmets. To then counteract that you can send your recruited soldiers to cut off the helmet supply chain. I just think that it's crazy that other enemies in the world are aware of your actions. If you attack an outpost and someone escapes, then they will alert other bases in the area. Those bases will then ready themselves for Big Boss, just in case he comes. There are also supply routes between each outpost, so if someone drives through and sees everyone dead, they'll turn around and alert others. It's super intricate.

The Phantom Pain enters the pantheon of games that let you pass time by smoking!

The basic gameplay of The Phantom Pain feels better than its predecessors. In comparison, it feels like a modern game should. It has tight and intuitive controls. This makes it fun to do everything. It's just fun to go around in the world and cause trouble. It's even better to put people to sleep and then balloon them away to your base. Seriously, when you put soldiers to sleep you can Fulton them away to Mother Base, where their stats will then contribute to your base and make it so you can develop more tools to use in the open world. It's essentially like Pokemon, but with tons of soldiers. This mechanic was in the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker as well, but it's implemented better here.

I can't praise this game enough. I came into the game expecting to not like it. I'm one of the crazy people who really liked watching the insanity play out in cutscenes of the previous games. It took me a while to adjust to the new style of the game, but in the end I think it paid off. The game is actually much better than it would have been as a cinematic fest. Essentially all the out of control silliness was transplanted from the cutscenes to the gameplay itself, and that's really cool. The Phantom Pain is definitely a game I think will be on a lot of people's game of the year list, mine included.

Persona 4: Dancing All Night

I like Persona, and I like rhythm games, so I had to get Persona 4: Dancing All night. The game consists of Persona 4 characters dancing to the smooth sounds of remixed Persona 4 music. I love Persona 4 music, so to hear it remixed was kind of cool. The issue I have with it is that it all kind of devolves into dubstep, which gets tiring after a while. The gameplay is fun and engaging enough to make up for that though.

When playing a song a character will be dancing around on the screen. In a frame around them in a circle there are 6 button prompts. On the left there is up, left, and down on the d-pad. On the right side there is triangle, circle, and x. Circles will start to fly out of the center of the screen, and you have to push the corresponding button of wherever it goes to. Most of the time you'll just be pushing the button in time with the beat, but sometimes you'll have to hold the button, or push two at the same time. There is also another mechanic that has circles emanate from the center of the screen. The game wants you to flick one of the analog sticks when it reaches the circle all of the button prompts are displayed on. This means that you have to take your hands off of the buttons to flick a stick, which is terrible. It's a good thing the game lets you turn on the ability to push L or R instead. It feels much more natural that way, and I don't get why it isn't the default. It doesn't necessarily matter though, because those button presses are optional/ You only need them to get a higher score. Man, saying all of that makes me sound like a crazy person.

P4D is pretty much the embodiment of fan service.

The rhythm game part is why most people will come to the game, but there is also a story mode. I could not stand it. I beat it in about 6 hours, and got very little enjoyment out of it. It's more or less a visual novel with no interaction. Games like Phoenix Wright and Danganronpa give players meaningful choice, or have them interact with the game in some way. Like in Phoenix Wright you collect evidence and present it at the right time. In P4D you literally read and make choices that don't matter one iota. Eventually you'll get a break from the text and be allowed to play the actual game. What sucks is that it's super well written, but there's so much text it feels like a slog.

Rise took a break from being an idol in Persona 4, but this game marks her return to the spotlight. She asked the protagonist Yu, and the rest of the investigation team to be her backup dancers for her special return performance. They agree, and begin to practice dancing. It's all a little too wordy to explain, but they end up getting wrapped up in another mysterious world filled with shadows. In the world they are not allowed to use acts of aggression, so to defeat their enemies they have to dance super hard, so that the enemies understand their emotions. I'm not even kidding. It sounds stupid, and that's because it pretty much is. I'm not lying when I say it's all well written, it's just that I don't really want to read for an hour before I actually get to play the rhythm game I paid for.

You get to read text like this for around 6 hours.

Persona 4 became extremely popular, which can easily be seen by the fact that it was spun off into a fighting game franchise and a freaking dancing themed rhythm game. I never would have imagined that the series could have reached such a critical mass. I think that the developers tried a little too hard with the story though. Sure, Persona is lauded for its great story telling and characters, but do we really need that in a rhythm game? This is the 4th game featuring these characters. I already know them, so why can't I get enjoyment out of playing 30+ remixes and watching their sweet dance animations? It all just feels a little forced and unnecessary, which is a shame, because the core gameplay is so good. It's easy enough to pick up, but super hard to master. As all rhythm games should be!

The Time Has Come

There's a time every fall when a game I want so bad it hurts gets released. That is happening this coming Tuesday. Finally, Disgaea 5 will be making its way to the U.S. I can finally experience the magical grind fest that makes me feel so good on the PS4. Strategy RPGs are my jam, and Disgaea combines that with my love of grinding. The combination is quite deadly for me, because I get in just a bit too deep. My addiction to the game will be strong, but this time I get to share it with the world! That's right, I will be streaming my playthrough of Disgaea 5, and I couldn't be more excited about it.

What's even crazier is that Rock Band 4 comes out the same day. It's the year 2015, and plastic instruments are making their glorious return!

You know it's going to be a good month when my two greatest loves in video games come out on the same day! I am so ready to immerse myself in a strategy RPG and a rhythm game at the same time. Get ready to hear all about both games in the next edition of Game Time.

Game Time - August 2015

As August and Summer draw to a close I still have a few games left to talk about. Even though I was visiting various cottages and playing Ultra Street Fighter 4 at Summer Jam 9, I actually found time to play video games. Most of which were new!

One such game that I won't be talking about here is the Rare Replay Collection for Xbox One. It collects 30 Rare developed games from the past 30 years. Obviously games like Donkey Kong Country can't be featured, but fan favorites such as Viva Pinata, and Banjo Kazooie are. All I want to say about this is that all companies releasing a game collection in the future should take note. This is how you collect games into a package!

As for brand new releases I picked up LBX or Little Battlers Experience for the 3DS. It's a robot fighting game from Level 5, the makers of Inazuma Eleven. It has as much charm and content as most other Level 5 games.

Next up we have the game I wish I didn't pay $60 dollars for, but had to have, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3. It's Dynasty Warriors, but with One Piece characters...for the third time!

Last but certainly not least I finally got around to playing Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It's not new, but I did break the seal on my disc copy. That makes it new, I guess? I had to prep for the true Metal Gear Solid V, so it was going to happen sooner or later. Speaking of MGSV I'm in the process of playing through it right now and I need to get back to it.

It's game time!

LBX: Little Battlers Experience

For some reason Level 5 decided that they wanted most of their franchises to be pan-media. They started with Inazuma Eleven and have continued on to LBX and Yokai Watch. Inazuma just had a game and an anime, while LBX and Yokai watch have expanded into the toy realm as well. With all of their franchises the games come first. However, in the case of all of these franchises they take a while to see the light of day outside of Japan. For example, there are three LBX games in Japan and the first one is only just coming out here now when it was first released in 2011.

In Japan the success of these games leads into an anime, while here in the U.S. it was the opposite. LBX was dubbed and shown on Nickelodeon. It was actually quite popular, despite the fact that half of the episodes were cut out for audiences outside of Japan. That's right. This show about battling tiny robots was too violent and professed ideas not suitable for American children! To be honest it is kind of crazy some of the stuff that takes place in this game. No joke, I had to stop a tiny robot from assassinating a prime minister, None of this makes sense without context though, so let me give you some.

Now that the cardboard is reinforced no one will get hurt!

Tiny robot toys called LBX were released to the public, but their battles proved to be too dangerous. After some kids got hurt they were banned. After a few years someone invented a super strong cardboard box for the robots to battle in. I can't make this up, it's called reinforced cardboard! Even though they're still super dangerous outside of the cardboard, because you can use them to kill people... Anyways, now kids love controlling these hot toys with their phones.

The gameplay is relatively simple. You control your customized robot in battle in third person. It can hold two weapons that each have a basic attack. Each time you attack it costs stamina. Running and jumping also decrease stamina. The game is essentially all about stamina management. If you run out you're left vulnerable and your attack decreases. After a few seconds it recharges, but the battles in LBX tend to last only 20 or 30 seconds. Every second and point of damage is crucial.

All the kids love a good LBX battle!

I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of the gameplay, but it's not bad, My enjoyment comes from collecting the hundreds of robot parts and weapons. I've always liked any game where you can customize robots for battle. Custom Robo and Gotcha Force on the Gamecube are two excellent examples of this. While I like those games better LBX definitely has an interesting story to back it up. I'm almost done with the story, so I'll wait to make a final judgement until the end.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3

I don't want to type a lot about this game. It's the same as Pirate Warriors 2, but with ten new additional characters. You mash square and triangle in order to decimate hordes of enemies. I enjoy it, but it's not for everyone. As opposed to basic gameplay I'll talk about the new systems they implemented.

In the previous game you equipped coins in order to increase your stats. Now you can spend coins permanently to upgrade your stats. This works out a lot better, because you don't have to mess around with changing out coins. You get coins by completing various missions, and each time you defeat officers in battle. If you defeat an officer with a special attack you get even more coins.

These are all the playable characters! (There are many non-playable characters on  here)

The other main change is the Kizuna Rush system. Each map you will be given specific partner characters who you can freely switch between. As you fight the bar next to the partner will fill up across three levels. At level 1 you will be able to push either square or triangle after you end a combo to have the partner attack as well. If the partner kills enemies they will be counted as ! kills. What sucks is that ! kills are one of the three things you're graded on each level and I've only ever gotten it to S rank one time.

Once the kizuna gauge is filled you can push R2 to power up. This will make your character stronger for a limited time. You can push circle to unleash a special from both characters. You can also chain Kizuna specials up to 3 times. So if you enter the powered up R2 state with two characters, the third time you do it and execute a special everyone used so far will attack in unison with you. It's super powerful.

Gotta destroy all the enemies!

Pirate Warriors is a lot different, but mostly the same. I like when they try to make refinements to the generic gameplay and test out new mechanics. It's always hard to try new things, so they get a kudos for trying.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

When I saw a disc based copy of Ground Zeroes on amazon for $5 dollars I jumped right on it. It's been sitting on my shelf for approximately six months now. I decided to pop it in on August 31st, because I wanted to prepare for the release of the true Metal Gear Solid V the following day. After playing Ground Zeroes I now agree with everyone who said it was an overblown tech demo, because it is. It took me an hour to complete, and only had story in the beginning and end.

As a Metal Gear game it was kind of disappointing, but as an open world stealth playground it was amazing. It makes sense that this is how Metal Gear would transition to the new generation of consoles, but I can imagine it won't sit well with most fans.

It's a sneaking mission.

My issue with a lot of stealth games is that once you're caught you're completely screwed. With the new non-terrible controls in Ground Zeroes it's easy to gun down everyone once you're caught. Sure you won't get a very high score, but at least you'll complete the mission. Even better is that you have a lot of options. There are tons of ways to approach any given scenario. It's fun to figure out a plan and then execute on it, but the scale is just too small.

I don't really have much to say about Ground Zeroes to be honest. It's a fun sandbox with almost no content. Sure you can do side missions, but it all takes place on the same military base. It's more or less a proof of concept for the full game. I actually would have been angry if I paid $30 for it. After playing MGSV proper I can say that the scale of the game is much larger than anything Ground Zeroes had to offer,

Metal Gear!?

I don't know what to think about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain yet/ I do know that it has started off September with a bang though. It certainly doesn't have as much story as the previous entries in the franchise, but so far the gameplay makes up for it. I really liked MGS 1-4, but I was not a huge fan of the controls. Most of the time I felt like I was struggling with the controls to make it to the next story beat.

That said, I'm going to keep playing V to see what happens in it. Maybe the open world stealth will wear thin, but it definitely hasn't happened yet. Next Friday I'll be picking up Super Mario Maker for Wii-U as well, and on the 29th we'll all get to witness the magic of Persona 4 characters dancing.

The games are going to start coming fast and furious, which means that I need to get playing! See you guys next time!

E3 2013: Microsoft Press Conference

The future of Xbox.

Microsoft kicked off day zero of E3 with their press conference as they always do. However, this year their press conference was arguably more important than it has been in recent memory. A few weeks ago they showed off their new console the Xbox One on live television to a somewhat muted response. They focused mainly on media features, which left a lot of Xbox fans feeling dejected. In addition to announcing that the Xbox One would not support used games and be subject to strict online connectivity

To cause further problems Microsoft released a statement detailing their policies for used games, online connectivity, and the Kinect. You can find those policies here. For those of you who don't know (Although that seems impossible at this point) games are linked to your Xbox live account. So you can only sell back used games to select retailers. This kind of DRM has been being pushed for by major publishers for a long time, but that doesn't mean that it's been well received by consumers. It doesn't exactly help that their clarified policies still aren't super clear.

Despite all of that Microsoft still brought their best to E3. While they promised that E3 would be all about showing the games they had to make some important announcements as well.

• Microsoft Points will be no more. It's only real money going forward!
• A partnership with twitch for online recording and streaming of games
• Another Xbox 360 redesign
• The Xbox One will launch for $499 in November

Microsoft promised a press conference full of games and they certainly delivered. I think it's safe to say that most of them aren't for me though. I missed a few of them when it was live, but I've since gone back to check out what I missed. Since I'm not a huge fan of shooters I'll just briefly talk about what I;m excited for from the Microsoft offerings.

Killer Instinct
Rare made some awesome games for Microsoft, but recently they've been relegated to working on the stupid avatars. Even now they're still not making a game I care about, but they are advising Double Helix Games as they reboot the oh so classic Rare franchise Killer Instinct. I say that sarcastically, because I don't think that Killer Instinct is beloved by anyone.

It always seemed like a Mortal Kombat ripoff, but I always had fun playing it. KI was very much a product of the 90's and I'm glad to see that it still is. So far only Jago and Sabrewulf have been shown, but they kept their outdated character designs. A gruff voiced announcer still yells when you complete combos and there is a weird amount of blood. It looks exactly like Killer Instinct and that makes me excited. I don't nessecarily know if anyone else will get excited for a very 90's-centric fighting game, but it's cool to see that Double Helix is trying it out.

Metal Gear Solid V
I'll be the first person to tell you that I don't think MGS5 should exist. In fact I'm not even excited for it. After the new trailer Konami produced for it I am at least interested in it though. The things I learned from the trailer were that it's an open world game, game time moves along with real time (At least I think?), the world seems large and empty, you have a crew, and you can go stealth on a horse.

Kojima has been going around saying that the themes in this game might offend or scare people and I'm kind of worried about that. In this trailer there were a few scenes with children that seemed kind of off. In one of them it seemed like Snake even shot them, but it was a cutaway. I don't really know. MGS5 looks insane just as every other MGS game. I just don't know if I want to experience that anymore.

D4
Swery, the man behind the terribly brilliant Deadly Premonition has been allowed to make another game. D4 is going to be an episodic release much like Telltale's The Walking Dead. It's a murder mystery in which you play as a man with time travel powers. He's trying to solve the murder of his wife, but I assume that since he has time travel powers he'll try to stop it as well. Swery is weird, so this game will probably be weird as well. It;s the good kind of weird though and I look forward to it.

Xbox One?

Microsoft showed a whole lot more, but it didn't really resonate with me. Titanfall the first game from Respawn Entertainment looks like a fusion of Halo and Call Of Duty with mechs. It's going to be an Xbox One Exclusive. Obviously there will be a new Halo game coming to the platform as well. A new Dead Rising will also be available if that's more your cup of tea. From what they showed it seems like a lot of the zany humor has been removed though, but we don't know that for sure yet.

People seem to be thinking that Microsoft is going to bomb in this new generation because of their DRM and their online connectivity. I don't necessarily agree with that. The Xbox One is still going to have a lot of top notch first party titles and a wealth of third party titles. The used game issue may cause a lot of problems at first, but it might not be quite as bad once the system gets off the ground. We're moving towards a digital only future already, so maybe Microsoft is just taking the first step

     -Manny