Batman Arkham Knight: What I'm Excited About

Hi guys,

Today we will be looking at Batman Arkham Knight, I'm sure it is a game that you all have heard of, and most of you either want it or are getting it at launch. I have played both preceding games in the "Rockstar Trilogy", those being Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. There isn't a single other game that does collectables as well as the Batman games, that may sound inconsequential compared to the main game, it may also sound like that is the only bit I like. Neither of these is the case, rather it is a near perfect game, which I believe has perfected the collectibles. Although somewhat short(only by 2011 standards, 10-12 hours is a positive hoard of gaming these days) the campaign is truly amazing. Back when I first played it I wasn't massively into the Batman universe, I liked the look of it, but didn't always know who was on screen despite the reaction of Batman making me think I should know the enemy currently inhabiting the screen.

Where should I start on the gameplay, not just the combat but also the stealth are incredibly addictive. Spurred on by the combat training rooms(unlocked from specific collectibles), which throw Batman into a room and either expect him to beat them all to a pulp and earn points for it, or stealth his was through an entire room of enemies. Neither of which is easy, especially when the difficulty ramps up the the near god like skill required to get three stars(or batarangs) on the later levels. There are also a whole heap of side quests which are perfectly fitted in to the world, without the player feeling like anything was shoe horned into the world.

Anyway enough about the previous games, and why I love them. We are here to look at Arkham Knight, the third instalment in the series from the parent developer Rockstar. Unlike in previous games where the main villains are ones we already know the previous lore of Batman, in Arkham Knight(as the title suggests) the main antagonist is the newly created Arkham Knight, who is adorned in high-end military gear which is designed to look similar to Batmans trademark armour. There is rife speculation about who is under the mask of the Knight, though I care not for these discussions as I eagerly await the nail biting moment when the Knight takes off his mask, though there is no indication that he will ever take his mask off! The whole of Gotham has been evacuated after Scarecrow issues a threat against all citizens who stay within the walls of Gotham. We don't yet know how or even if the city will then be divided up by the respective villains, Penguin, Two Face, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn and more are making a triumphant return to Gotham. The size of Arkam Knight's City is apparently 5x the size of our previous superhero playground in Arkham City, and with an increase in size comes a new way to transport the Batman around. No longer will the famed and incredibly fun cape be the only way of traversing the city, now we will have the Batmobile to wreak havoc on the villains unwittingly residing on the streets of Gotham. The Batmobile has been the one feature that I have taken some warming to, but with every new trailer that is released, my excitement for the new transportation mode grows. The Batmobile appears to be just as armoured and weaponised as the Batman himself, with cannons and more have been spotted rising from the sleek body of the vehicle.

If you couldn't tell from the whole tone of this above spiel I am incredibly excited for Batman Arkahm Knight to be released in early June(no hype for this game at E3 the!), oh and have I mentioned that this is the last Batman game Rockstar are releasing. It is unclear if they will pass the franchise over to another team like the did for Arkham Origins, but I personally would suggest this will be the last outing of Batman we will see in gaming for quite some time. When this was first announced I was obviously sad that this was going to be the last one in the series, until someone pointed out that Rockstar are still going to be making games. So which franchise(hopefully superhero) will they turn their expert gaze to next? Or might they tread their own path with a new IP being released from their doors in a few years?I am not one to answer this question, but I sure as hell am excited both about Arkham Knight at the future of Rockstar.

That is me done for now, and I am just left to thank you for reading, and to tell you that this new page on my site dedicated to Batman Arkham Knight, will be updated in the future leading all the way up to my review! So stay tuned!

Ed

Destiny Review

Hi guys,

Seeing as Destiny is such a large game, I will be breaking this review down into small segments each disecting the components of the game, enjoy!
     Story: You have doubtlessly heard a lot of bad things said about the core story of Destiny, and unfortunately they are all very accurate. There is a minimal plot line in the game, with most levels devolving down to a three wave system of enemys while Dinklebot(your Ghost) does something, using the same floating animation, to a computer. The only reason I stuck the campaign out was for the XP you got at the end of every mission. Before the game came out, we were led to belive that there was a vast and complex lore behind the game, and to some extent there is, but firstly you can't access said lore(in the form of Grimouir Cards) via the game, instead you have to make and connect a new Bungie.net account. And secondly the cards aren't the easiest thing in the world to navigate, I personally want to find out more about the Cryptarchs, but know very little because the Grimouir system is to complex for me to bother to hunt out specific infomation.
      Weapons: The weapons in Destiny are a strange afair, once you get to level 20(which took me 12.5 hours) you want to start collecting Legendary weapons and armour(more on light levels later!). To give you some background, there are five levels of rarity for weapons, White, Green(Uncommon), Blue(Rare), Purple(Legendary) and Exotic(Yellow/Gold). So post level 20 you need Legendary gear to do decent damage to enemys. However the problem is that Legendary weapons feel un-satisfying at least for me, knowing that their is still one rank higher of rarity to earn, I am never quite satisfied with Legendary, this coupled with the fact that Legendarys are basically the weapons you have been using so far in the game, with a higher damage cap and more perks to invest in. Though non of said perks drastically change the wepaons and Legendary rarity. Then we move onto Exotic, which are somwhere between rare and mega rare, the difference with this rarity is luck. I have currently been playing for about 60 hours, I have 4 exotic peices, one weapon bought from Xur(unsatisfyingly), and from an Exotic bounty(to random to be fun), one chest peice as a random reward from the Weekly Nightfall, and my last peice is a chest peice which I got from an exotic engram, which I bought from Xur. I know someone who less than two hours after reaching level 20 had a legendary engram drop from a level 2 enemy, which then got decoded into an Exotic weapon. To sum up my thoughts on the weapons of the game, I wish there were tied to bosses and mini-bosses like with the high end weapons in Borderlands 2.
     RNG: If you don't know RNG stands for Random Number Generater, ie luck. Far too much of this game rests on the shoulders of luck, there is no sure fire way of getting any specific weapons, or armour apart from doing near endless amounts of Tiger Strikes to get Vanguard Marks, or tons of Crucible matches for Crucible matches! You either get lucky with mission reward drops, or level up the Vanguard, who post level 2, gives you a package with legendary gear in every time you level up. You level up the Vanguard by doing a lot of the daily bounties, which get rather repetitive.
     Crucible: Right moving onto the Crucible or PVP in this game, going into the games launch, I was super excited to get into the Crucible, and that was where I thought I would be spending most of my time. That really isn't the case now the game has launched, it's quite a fun side persuit, but I have put very little time into it, I have played a total of around 7 hours in the Crucible. About 4 of those hours were because I was forced to be in there for my Thorn bounty! The largest problem stopping it from becoming awesome, is the lag, the netcode for the game is aweful, and any time you get a kill, the score for that kill won't show up for up to 10 seconds! I've had it where I have got a kill, then been killed, waited for the repawn count down, and only a few seconds after getting back in does the kill notifier pop up! This may not sound like a lot when you are just reading about it, but in person when you are playing it yourself, it is the worst thing that could plague a Multiplayer game in my opinion!
     Gameplay: I know I have been dissing this game a lot, but the moment to moment gameplay of Destiny is very fun and satisfying, the weapons do feel very nice to use, though once you have used one Scout Rifle you have used them all! The enemys are diverse, and unless you spend an extended period of time on one planet, then you won't get fed up of the enemies.
      Replayability: This is a tricky issue to raise for Destiny, becuase it is the most subjective issue in gaming. The amount of fun you have with this game post 15 hours will solely rely on how much you enjoy doing the same activities over and over again. Technically there is an infinite supply of things to do in the game, the daily bounties, daily story mission, weekly strike, weekly Nightfall strike and occasional timed special events will keep certain players busy for many hours. However for some gamers this constant grind fest(Destiny summed up in two words!) will be highly unappealing.Which brings me onto my next point:
     Post Level 20: Once you pass level 20 you will have to aquire special gear which has a new stat on it called Light, with that peice of gear equiped your character will now have as many light points as where on that peice. This is not only a strange system of leveling, but also highly unreliable, as RNG rears its ugly head again, as you could reach level 26 or 27 quite quickly, or someone could take dozens of hours to reach that mark. However long it takes you to get to level 27, you then have to start grinding what are called Ascendant Shards, which are required to rank up you gear to give you more light points. These Shards are very hard and slow to aquire unless you do the Raid frequently, which brings me onto:
     The Raid: On paper the raid in the game, works extremely well, but in practice when you give the game to the real gamers, it falls apart. The Raid is a six man event which will take bare minimum 1.5 hours first time. Put it this way on the first day the Raid was released the first team to complete it took in excess of 11 hours! All in one sitting. Communication is an absolute esential, and you all need to be very experienced players with high rank weapons. Here come the big problem, there is no matchmaking. So you have to personally find five other players who can all sit down with mikes for a good few hours in one go to complete this mission. Now somepeople may argue that you can just play the game without doing the Raid, and yes you can. However whilst doing the raid you can get up to 15 Shards, in a few hours, at the moment I can get up to 4 Shards in 2 hours if I am extremely lucky. Most days I get none. Added on to this the fact that all primary weapons(exotic weapons included) have no elemental damage on them, ie Solar, Arc and Void. But if you play the Raid enough, you will get a whole host of primary weapons with elemental damage on them. Effectivly, think of the Raid weapons as Exotic(they are Legendary) weapons that you can use 3 of(you can only equip one exotic weapon). These high teir weapons really come into their own when you do the Nightfall Strike, which always(bar one week in ten so far) has a burn on them, which means that a specific elemental damage deals around 300% extra damge, both dealt by you and the enemies. At the end of the Nightfall Strike, you are guaranteed high rank gear, be in legendary or exotic gear, or Ascendat materials, or Strange Coins, all of which will come in very usefull. The clincher come when you put 2 and 2 together and work out that if you do the raid enough, you are given a much, much easier time of the Nightfall than someone who hasn't done the Raid. This coupled with the fact that you can only get to level 30(the max rank pre-DLC) by earning the very rare and random drops of Raid armour from the various chests and enemies in the Raid. All told the Raid makes a very large part of the game unplayable for far to many people(myself included) for the amount of time and energy Bungie put into it! My last note on the issue is this, according to the Playstation trophies a mear 13% of players who have Destiny have completed the Raid!
      Round Up: Although I have bashed this game alot, it is still a very fun game to play, and one that will suck a lot of time from you if you give in to it. You can spend fun filled hours, doing Strikes, Crucible, Exotic and normal Bounties, material farming and more. The most important thing to bare in mind with this game, is that it will get better, multiple patches are in the works as we speak(write?), the next one which will be out by the release of The Dark Below(the first DLC), which will give a drastic change to all Exotic weapons. Bungie are one of the best developers out there for listening to thier audience, changes for a ton of stuff are in the pipework, and I have near total faith in Bungie to bring Destiny up to the level that I know it can be; we just have to wait.
My total review score for Destiny is: 8.5/10, with the capacity for Bungie to make it a solid 10/10.
Thank you very much for reading my long ramblings, check back soon for more new content!
Ed

Advanced Warfare Impressions

Hi guys,

I have now had Advanced Warfare(or AW as I will be referring to it as) for a few days now, and have put a good number of hours into the game, so I thought it was time for me to bring my initial reaction of the game to you, though I will only be talking about the multiplayer side of the game today, you will learn about what I think of the rest of the game in my full review later this month! Also I have played AW on the PS4 so that is what I will be referring to. Let's start with the most obvious change in the CoD series history, the exo suite, for from reading about it or watching some footage of the multiplyer you will not fully understand what a difference that the exo makes. I know going into playing for the first time I was quite anxouis that the movement would be hard to control, and I wouldn't be using it much, however within a few matches I came to the realisation that this game really is the comeback year for CoD. The movement, I find, is pretty easy to pick up, as long as you remember that you can only exo boost every 3 seconds, and you have 2 boosts, so you can boost twice, but then wait 3 seconds for one to regenerate, and another 3 seconds for the other boost to regenerate. Any time you are in the air(quite  alot) you can press sprint in any direction and you will boost in that direction. While you are on the ground you can boost any where in the 180 degrees behind you, so left, right and behind.
       With all of the new movement, how are the maps? Well, they are just as amazing as the movement, you never feel like you are to far from the action, this feeling is amplified by the fact that you can traverse the map very quickly. There is alot of verticality to all of the maps, but I haven't come across many if any people camping in hard to reach spots. The rate of progression is very nice, and though I have played in 2XP I am already at level 30! There are the new supply drops, which though very fun when you earn one, they are too random to be anything more that a side fancy. Which is a real shame because the system of random loot, is a very appealing one, especially as you can do just as well, with the standard weapons, they just maybe aren't quite right for you, but there is probably a variation out there to suit you!
     Moving on to the weapons, they are all highly satisfying to use, from the 12 hours or so I played of Ghosts, all the weapons had no personality to them. Where as in AW there are so many weapons which feel like they do something different from the rest, you have the BAL-27(OP? Yes!) which shoots the first 5 or so bullets at a slower rate of fire. You have the AK-12 which is a nice all round weapon, but doesn't exceed at any one thing. You have the HBRA3, which has a rather slow rate of fire, but you feel like each bullet is packing a noticeable punch, but don't try to take it into a close range engagement. Moving on the the SMGs, I have only really used the KF5 and the ASM1 a little, the KF5 really does feel like a pole apart from the ARs, and though all SMGs need a buff they are still usable in the right scenario now. With the increased rate of fire and approximately 10% increase movement speed while holding an SMG, you feel totally different from when you are using an AR. And the ASM1 is a modern take on the Tommy Gun, which is an absolute blast to use.
      You then have the most diverse create-a-class system to date, the Pick 13 system, it is the same as BOII's pick 10 system, but this time score streaks count as one point, so for me(someone who doesn't go on many kill streaks) I am running with a UAV and Carepackage, and going into the fray with one more perk. Speaking of score streaks, you can now tweak your streak to how you want it to be, there are about 6-7 modules you can attach to a score streak, each of which adds to the score you must earn before you earn said streak, so for me I am running UAV with player direction and support(progress towards the streak carries on after death) and a Care Package with Better Odds and Support. This means that I am guaranteed to earn at least 2 score streaks per match. The depth with which you can customise your streaks to be how you want them to be is really amazing, and don't worry, you can only add support to a hand full of streaks, and non of the high streaks!
      Now we have talked about all the awesome things in the game, let's talk about the very low number of things that I don't like with AW. It really boils down to two things, firstly there are some pretty bad spawns, I have spawned in the line of sight of enemy players, I have spawned on the exact spot on which I just died, though this hasn't annoyed me as much as I thought it would. The game is just so fun to play that these occasional free deaths don't really bug me. The other annoying thing I have found(though you should note again that all my thoughts are before any patches have been released) is occasional severe frame rate drops and extreme lag, these session last for between 10-20 seconds, in which time I reckon I was getting about 5 frames per second! Such instances occur too often for me to dismiss them as nothing, but it is possible that the issue was fixed in the patch on 11/11/14. One last note, the reason I haven't spoken about the new game modes in AW, I due to the fact that I have only been playing Hardpoint, so you will know my thoughts on Uplink and Momentum in my full review!
That just about wraps us my impressions of Advanced Warfare, it is very very good, I would highly recommend anyone picking it up, whether you are a CoD veteran or new to the series, this is the time to get into it!
Thanks for reading,
Ed
P.S I'm back!
    

Battlefield 4 Tips and Tricks

Hi guys,
 If you follow me on Twitter you will know just how big a fan of Battlefield 4 I am, and today I thought I would impart some of my wisdom to you. Well I hope it is wisdom or this whole post is a bit worthless but for now we will strive on under the assumption that is is wisdom and not the ramblings of a mad man! One last quick note, all of my tips today will be centered around how to do them on the PS4 controller, so I apologise if your are on any other platform!

      1) Spotting: This is probably the nost important tip I will give you today, as you will know shooting has been moved to R2 on the DS4(Dualshock 4) and spotting is now bound to R1, this is actually really handy because I have now got into the habbit of constatnly spotting and then quickly moving my finger back to R2 to shoot. I can't tell you the number of times it has saved my skin/shown me someone to shoot who I couldn't normally see, so get into the habbit of doing it constantly!

     2) Big Map: You may not know this but even on console you can bring up the whole of the map, rather than relying on just the little one in the bottom corner. To do this you simply hold the options button(to bring up the scoreboard) then press R1 which will move it to the map, once you release options obviously it will take the map from the screen. However when ever you bring up the scoreboard again the map will instead be there, to switch back to the scoreboard press L1! I usually check the big map every time I spawn in so I can see whrere I need to go! Alternatlivly you could just check the spawn map and spawn where you think you are needed.

     3) Sniper Lense Glint: If ever you see a little glint in the corner of your eye, like someone on the map is shining a torch right at you this isn't a bug, it is acutually the sun reflecting of the scope of a sniper! This is also usefull to watch out for if every you are trying to counter snipe!

     4) Tank Weak Spots: Want to get the upper hand in a tank-on-tank battle? Well the sides of a tank will give you the lowes damage(so turn your side towards the enemy tank), but most importantly the rear of the tank will give you the largest damage! Bear these 2 tips in mind during a tank battle and you will more than likley win!

     5) Talk to Your Team: If-like me- you don't particularly like turning your mike on to directly speak to your team mates, then you can hold L1 which will bring up this wheel of options:

      You can then select one of them(by hovering over one of them and releasing L1) and then it will pop up in the top left of the screen for your whole team to read. Also any team mates nearby will be able to hear your plea for help of your command!

     6) Squads: The first thing I do every time I join a server is press triangle to survey all of the squads, you want to pick the squad with the most number of people already in it(ovbisously not 5!) and join it, this can actually be really vital because with a large squad you are less likely to all die and lose your precious squad points. It will also give you a larger pool of players to choose to spawn on! Though be warned sometimes there will be a squad of less than 4 and it won't give you the option to join it, there is nothing you can do so just choose another squad.

     7) Phantom Assignmests: Right this is my last tip for the day and it revolves around the ellusive Phantom Prospect and Treinee assignments. You have to be a Premium member to be able to start working towards the assingment. First though you must enter the correct passwords for each assingment, what you have to do is go the the leaderboards table and scroll down, then in the bottom left you will see a little mask behind another mask. If you click on this it will bring up a large page of code, don't worry this is what it is supposed to do, once it has verified you are a premium member it will ask you to put a password in, the first password you want to put in is, bumpinthenight, just like that with no spaces. That will give you access to the Phantom Prospect assignment. Then you will be asked to input a second password which is, epic dream worlds, this time with all of the spaces, this will give you access to the phantom treinee assignment. Good luck completing them!

That brings me to the end of my tips and trick for BF4, I hope you found this usefull in some way, if you did be sure to tell your friends about them!
Thanks for reading
Ed

Battlefield Hardline

Hi guys,
 Unless you have had your head stuck in the sand the last couple of days, you will know that a lot of Battlefiled Hardline details have been leaked. If you didn't know Battlefield Hardline is the next instalment in the Battlefield franchise, and will be coming to PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC later this year. The game is based around the principle of cops v robbers, but I assure you, this game will take that theory further than any other game has done before! The game is being made by Visceral, a developer owned by EA, and this game will mark the first in the franchise not to be made by DICE. There are rumours circulating at the moment that only the single player is being made by Visceral whilst the multiplayer is being made by DICE, this is unconfirmed and personally I  find it hard to belive, especially as DICE should still be hard at work on BF4s DLC and working of the CTE(Community Test Environment). There has been a 7 minute trailer that has been leaked which was supposed to be shown at E3(and still will) at EA's conference, EA are doing their best to keep the leak at bay, but all you have to do is search Battlefield Hardline Gameplay in You Tube and you should find it pretty quickly.
     Some of the things mentioned in the trailer are: Stun guns, batons, grappling guns, various new game modes and more!

You really should go and check it out, in one of the briefer scenes we get a look at some of the guns that are in the current build of the game and they are: Famas, AEK, M416, CZ-805, SAR-21, AUG-A3 and the QBZ-95-1, they are some of the guns listed, but the images for the weapons aren't where they should be. So we have the MP7 and the P90 is pictures, these are all popular guns in BF4 so it wasn't a long shot to say they would be in Hardline, but it is nice to get confirmation! Stats in the game will be shown on a wheel, where the more the bar is filled the higher that stat. We can see stats for fire rate, accuracy and damage, each of which has green and red bars for if it is affected by an attachment! It is unclear what attachment is causing this but something is increasing the fire rate dramatically, could we see the introduction of a rapid fire attachment?
     The trailer also says that we will be seeing an episodic style campaign, you will still get all of the episodes on the disk, but the story will be broken down into episode style segments, complete with cliff hangers and anything else you might expect from a hit detective programme!
     I am very excited for Hardline, not least because it is very different from BF4, so you won't have 2 games that are clashing for the same style of game! I am really looking forward to officially seeing this trailer at E3 in a couple of weeks, and I hope there will be more coverage of the game during E3!
  That's all for now, thank you all for reading
Ed
Don't forget to also check out my website to keep up to date with all my new posts:
www.thegamescritic,com

Trials Fusion: Review

A hearty hello to each and every one of you out there in the ether reading this post,
 Today I will be portraying my view of Trials Fusion for your enjoyment! Without another beat of the proverbial bush let's get straight into it.
 This was the first Trials game I have played, going into the first level I was cautiously excited, that caution was put to the wind as soon as I caught my first huge jump(a mear 10 seconds into the track!). As the hours of game time flew past me I never stopped to think, what will happen when the game ends? Well luckily for me it never will, if you didn't already know Trials Fusion boasts the deepest user creation tools I have seen in any game I have played. The developers have even given us the lofty expectation that all of the game could be made in the level creator. As soon as you take your first steps into the level creation you will see that it wasn't an understatement, the tools you have at your finger tips would make even the hardiest of gamers weep at the thought of the possibility's. That being said, the creator does have some down sides, firstly it isn't all that user friendly, or it gives of that impression until you start getting to grips with it, then it is considerably more manageable! The other down side to the creation tools, is the way in which they can be overloaded. This won't be a large problem for most people, but yesterday I started a new track and somewhat spammed the lighting effects. In my head it would have been somewhere between the scope of Game of Thrones and the lighting effects of a neon planet! Now you have that magnificent image in your head, lets take a look at the final product:

For the sake of clarification all of those green and orange flames should be constantly on, but due to how many of them there are the game can't keep them all going, thus they all flicker inconsistently! 

     However if your interest will largely stay within the bracket of  the "campaign" then you are in for a treat, each track has 3 medals and 3 challenges to complete. If you think that sounds easy then you are sadly mistaken, the challenges range from hard to harder. Also a nice handful of the challenges are very cryptic, such as Win a game of tennis. You might think, how do you play a game of tennis in a motorbiking game? Spoilers, that why! All of the medals and challenges give you XP, which will contribute to your level, which in turn will slowly unlock new outfits for your biker. Over all the amount of content in this game is staggering. At the time of writing this review there are just over 4,000 track made by you the gaming community. I am pretty sure however that the tracks you upload are locked to that console, so you can't play a track which has been uploaded from the Xbox One on the PS4! Seeing as the game has only been out less than 2 weeks the quality of some of the tracks is quite astonishing and I can't wait to see the direction the community will take!

      Alas the game is not perfect and it does have a couple of flaws, the largest in my opinion is the voice overs, they themselves are actually really good, but the line of dialogue they are saying will be cut if you have to restart back to the last checkpoint. You will then never hear that line of dialogue again unless you play the track again. So that means that what story there is in the game was largely lost on me because so much of what they were saying was cut. I would have liked to see either the ability to replay the voice overs from the pause menu or the voices continue no matter how many times you restart. If you were wondering, none of what the voice overs say specifically ties into that part of the track. My other gripe with the game is the check points, now they themselves have been placed just frequently enough to stop you pulling your hair out, but far enough away to feel like you have achieved something when you get to one. No it isn't that, my problem is momentum, an irritating number of the jumps are much, much harder to achieve when you retry and then have no momentum behind you. I don't know whether to some people this adds to the challenge of the tracks, but for me I find it quite irritating!

     There you go, they are all of my opinions of Trials Fusion, all in all it is a brilliant game which I wouldn't hesitate to recommend you buy. Now time for the score!

Tracks: All superbly crafted, make replayability an extreme pleasure!                                            10/10

Graphics: Looks really good, but you are mainly focusing of the bike so everything else doesn't matter! 10/10

Challenge: Just the right amount of challenge to keep you coming back!                                             10/10

Gripes: Cut out voice overs and momentum problems!                                                                    5/10

Enjoyability: An extremely enjoyable game that will keep me coming back for a very long time!         10/10

Which brings me to the grand total of :

                                                                  9.0/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Trials Fusion, and I hope it made you want to play this biking masterpiece.

Signing out, but not for long.

Ed

Battlefield 4 Diary: Aqua Domination

Hi guys Rick here reporting to you from inside the battlefield,

 07:00: The time that we all wake up every day, I nearly always train in the morning and then go out and shed blood for which every country I am serving now, and this day was no different. We usually do 10 laps of the Aircraft Carrier we live on and also serves as a mobile deployment station for where ever we are needed.

 

09:00: At  this time a couple of us have usually been deployed but most of us are sat around twiddling our thumbs until the afternoon. 

 

 13:06: My lunch was cut short when I was told that I was being deployed, my orders from up high were to scout a plane crash in an attack boat. Thinking back that was one of the best tuna sandwiches I had eaten in quite a while!

 

 13:12: That was one of the quickest times that I had got from the mess to the lower deck in a long time, but this was a special day, I am usually deployed on foot, so to be entrusted with a huge boat with even bigger guns was quite a spectacle.

 13:17: By this time I had reached the crashed plane, but I could feel that something wasn't right, it was too quiet, there was no body any where near the crashed plane, the whole place was totally deserted. Just as I was about to radio back to the Carrier to report, I saw them. I saw the enemy, and they were plentiful, I managed to take down one of their attack boats and a couple of infantry before I my self was killed. 

 13:19: Expecting to go into the nether, I was very surprised when I suddenly woke up in an identical attack boat! This time before I left the Carrier I made a few upgrades to the boat, this time I would be going out with a new kind of ammo which I was assured by my quarter master would deal with enemy boats with greater ease. He was right.

 13: 25: This day was turning out to be a very, very good one I had already dispatched 2 enemy boats and I was bearing down on my third. Every thing was going brilliantly, but it would seem with hindsight that the enemy saw what I was doing and dispatched a jet to take care of me. As you may be able to imagine, it didn't take long before I was waiting to wake up again.

 13: 33: I felt like I was within spitting distance of something very important, I just couldn't put my finger of what! This time when I woke up there was someone else driving the big boat and I was precariously stood on the back of it with a rather large chain gun. 

 13:37: This was going brilliantly, it turned out that the guns on the side of the boat were highly affective against most things that floated. Alas my reign of aqua dominance could only last so long. This time it was someone from the shore line who was pointing a rather large gun at me which he rested on his shoulder.

 13:54: After several more escapades in the attack boat I got a radio buzz from my quarter master, who told me that I was now a good enough boat driver to be entrusted with a very new gadget which had been nicknamed "TV Missiles", as soon as I used one for the first time I could see why, using a screen in my boat no bigger than a laptop, I could wirelessly control very explosive missiles, and send them all the way across the map!

 14:35: After a little while longer experimenting with this new gadget I was told that I had played my part for the day and that I was being brought back to the Carrier. I was quite disappointed because I was having more fun in the boats that I undoubtedly would doing laps of the Carrier. Alas I would be able to take to the seas once more tommorow!

Thanks for reading,

Ed

Just as a quick note on the end, Rick is a totally fictional character and the diary is written from his perspective of one of the players in Battlefield 4.

inFamous Secons Sons run down!

Super Powers, Choice, Smoke
Hi guys, 
 Just a quick note before I get into the main post, from now on most of my posts will be starting with 3 words the I feel represent the game the best from what I am played/seen of it!
 Ever since  I saw the credits role over my journey through inFamous 2 I have been on tender hooks waiting for any word of the next game. So when Second Sons was announced last year Sucker Punch had my undivided attention. Fast forward and after numerous trailers and tibits of information I am very excited that the release of this game is only 2 weeks away! If you aren't totally aware of the premise of Second Sons then let me fill you in, you will play as Delsin who is a Conduit(in other words someone with supernatural powers) and who lives in a society of people who don't like conduits(or as they call them Bio Terrorists). You will enact your adventure within the confines of a beautifully recreated Seattle. That is one of the things I am really excited about in Second Sons, the level of detail that Sucker Punch appear to have put into portraying a realistic recreation of Seattle.
     During the time we will spend with Deslin we will be trying to rid the city of the apparent plague of the DOP, the people who want to cleanse all Bio Terrorists from Seattle. In the time we will be traversing E-Seattle we will be coming in contact other Conduits that also want freedom within their own city, so far we only know of  is a woman who has alluring name of Fetch! Fetch has remained quite elusive to us so far and all we know is that she has control over neon, being able to shoot neon balls out of her hand. We also know that Deslin and Fetch collide at quite some speed and then Delsin is able to drain neon from any near by sources, this raises the tantalising question of what other powers will we be able to commandeer from other conduits? It has been confirmed that there will be multiple powers Delsin will be able to control, but Sucker Punch have kept their lips very tightly sealed about what they could be! If would be quite nice if we will be able to utilise the power of electricity like Cole could in inFamous 2!

That brings me to the end of my run down of inFamous Second Sons, the only last piece of information I can dangle in front of you is the release date on March 21st! Only 2 weeks to the day from when this post first went live!
Thanks for reading and stop reading and start playing!
Ed
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Battlefield 4: ACE-23 Gun Review

Hi guys,
 I decided that seeing as I am loving Battlefield 4 so much, I would bring you a review of one of the guns/classes I like to use! If you already have BF4 you have doubtlessly heard of or used the ACE-23, despite BF4 being a much more balanced game(gun wise) there are still guns that the masses will crowd towards. In BF4 the ACE-23 is just such a weapon. The biggest problem with this weapon is actually unlocking it, it is unlike most other Assault Rifles as you need to complete 3 assignments to be able to unlock it! Let's break down the three assignments:

     First you will have to complete Assault Basic, which will require 7 kills with any Assault Rifle and 11 heals, but most importantly you will need to be at least rank 10 which shouldn't take you to long to do. I believe this is to keep this very powerful weapon out of the hands of people who have just picked up the game. The heals can be obtained either with the Med Kit or the Med Bag. You will then be awarded with the Assault Basic dog tag.
     Next there will be the Assault Veteran assignment, you will needed to have completed Assault Basic to unlock Assault Veteran, for this you will need to get 8 kills with any Assault Rifle an 12 total heals. Much like Assault Basic this will be very easy to complete, though if you are having trouble with the heals play some Operation Locker pop one down and the heals will come quickly! The nice thing about this assignment is that you get a new camo for all weapons and vehicles for completing it.

     So far the assignments have been a walk in the park and you should get them within a few matches, the biggest problem is Assault Expert, which firstly requires you to have competed the two above assignments and then you will need 50 Medkit Ribbons, 200 kills with any AR and 10 AR Ribbons. Despite it sounding quite daunting this one assignment only took me about 4 hours to complete. The 50 Medkit ribbons: to earn one Medkit ribbon you have to earn 8 heals in one round. For this I would recommend you having the Medbag but it isn't essential, this will also mean that you will get a Medkit medal. The 200 AR kills and the 10 AR Ribbons both will be earned together, the ribbon requires you to earn 6 AR kills in one round, you will earn this before you get your 200 AR kills. As for the 200 AR kills it isn't that hard, just quite time consuming. Once you have completed all of this you will earn yourself the ACE-23.

    Right now you have unlocked it let's talk about how it handles, this is a very good overall weapon, it can handle itself up close and further away(though you will need to tap fire for long range shots) and that is the main reason it is good. Anyone can pick it up and do well, you don't need to chose a compromise you just have to pick up the weapon. Let's talk about the attachments:

To be honest the optic is really down you how you want to play with this gun, but if you are going to be close to medium range then I would recommend either the Coyote RDS or the Kobra RDS. I find the laser sight is invaluable as you will be running into people unexpectedly so you want to be able to hip fire and still have a fighting chance. I haven't unlocked it yet but I would recommend the green laser sight as it is the hardest see at a distance.

     If you didn't know, in BF4 you can equip a suppressor with out it effecting you damage stats, as it did in BF3. Instead it only slows the flight of your bullets, this makes it an essential for any guy(when you unlock it).

Finally you have you under barrel attachment, I have gone for the potato grip as it decreases your bullet spread when you shoot!

    

     Thank brings me to the end of this review for the ACE-23 in Battlefield 4, all in all I would give it 10/10, a flawless gun that can be used at nearly all ranges with few guns to out shoot it. I know this has been a bit of a weird post but I am playing very little else at the moment, so I wanted to post about it. Please do tell me if you want to see more of these BF4 gun reviews either by Tweeting me, or leaving a comment down bellow!

    As always thanks for reading,

Ed

Don't forget you can read this and much more on my new Website!

100th Post Extravaganza

Hi guys,
 I have been looking forward to bringing you all this post for a very long time, my 100th post. I am going to cut to the chase and tell you that after many months of work I am very pleased to announce to you all that I have launched a website! This website will feature posts from this blog, and in the future will get posts that will not be on this blog! I would really appreciate it if you would go and check it out and tell me what you think, you can tweet me any of your thoughts or ideas here.

Go now and read the future of The Games Critic: thegamescritic.com

If you would like to tweet about my new website click here! This just helps to get the word out about the new site.
 That is all for now, thank you all very much for reading and I can't really thank you all enough for the support you have shown me over the last couple of months.
Ed

Playstation 4 Review

Hi guys,
 Just before I start this post I would just like to say that this is my 99th post on this blog. Within the next week you can expect my 100th post. The 100th post is going to be huge, it will change the whole format of my blog and I am really excited to bring it to you all. I have been working behind the scenes on this project for a few months now so it will be very nice to finally see it released. If you follow me on Twitter then you will have seen some tweets in-directly about it. That is the only hint you will get!  Right after that intro I have an equally awesome post for you, my full review of the Playstation 4. Now this will be the first console I have reviewed so I hope I cover all of the relevant points.
   
 DESIGN: Let's start with the design of the console, this console is a really stunner, if there was a bar where all of the games consoles hung out, when the PS4 enters the room she(I have given my PS4 a girls name, as should you!) would turn many heads. Moving on from that slightly weird analogy, seriously though she does look gorgeous, if you are a hermit at haven't seen what the PS4 looks like here she is:

CONTROLLER: That is the other major change with the PS4 the Dualshock 4, I can't stress enough how bigger difference you can feel just by holding the controller. When I first picked up the controller back in September at Eurogamer, I wasn't particularly infatuated with it and that gave me cause for concern. However as soon as I picked it up with my own PS4 I just fell in love with it, I think the first thing that will hit you is the size of it. This is considerably bigger than the Dualshock 3, and I personally think it is better because of it! It will take you a while to get used to it, but when you do it is simply a joy to use.
     As you may know the start and select buttons from the Dualshock 3 have been replaced with the options and share buttons, and touch pad. As it sounds the share does nothing but takes screen shots/videos. The options and touch pad are the new start and select, with the touch pad usually taking the place of select and the options button taking the place of start. In the future I would like to see more games take more advantage of the touch pad. I can see it being a feature that will maily be used in first party games. I know for a fact that there are sections of inFamous Second Sons that will feature the touch pad, I can't wait to see what Naughty Dog can do with it! All in all I think it is one of if not the biggest improvement between Dualshock 3 and 4!

GRAPHICAL CAPABILITY: The difference between the PS3 and 4 graphically is staggering, if you look at a game like Battlefield 4(single player) and then you look at something like Uncharted 3, the difference is huge. Now I know you want a difference that big, but this is just the beginning of the consoles life span, the graphics/size of games is only grow the longer the console is out there!  Lip syncing has also been greatly improved between the generations, I know it is some what down to the game engine/developer but the console itself gives them the opportunity to do so much more than they could before.Most of the games you will play with be 1080p and 60fps, if you don't know what that means, it is going to look gorgeous and run very very smoothly!
 
     THE BAD THINGS WITH THE CONSOLE: Yes it is a shame that a few things are done wrong with this console, but non of them are huge and shouldn't get in the way of your day-to-day gaming experience. The first thing is actually the share button, when you take a screen shot(by pressing the share button once depending on what you have set it to in the settings) it will take a screen shot. When ever you want to upload that screen shot, you press and hold the share button and it gives you the option to either tweet the shot, or post it on Facebook. I would have really liked to see an option where by you can email it to yourself or others. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you can only access your photos through the PS4, not through the Playstation website or something like that, I feel it was a big missed opportunity with the PS4.
     
     My second problem with the PS4 is the downloads system, when ever something is automatically downloaded or you start something downloading, you have no ability what so ever to pause that download. This may not be a huge problem for many people but for me with a 1.8mb/s Internet speed any kind of download in the background means that I then can't play any multiplayer games. This is a huge pain especially as games for the PS4(Warframe for example is 50GB) are so big.
   
     This brings me onto my third problem with the PS4, the memory. Now I know that in time there will be much bigger options available for the PS4, but to only have one 500GB(the size that was available on the PS3 at the end of it's life cycle) option at launch I feel was a wasted opportunity. I have already filled half of my hard drive with 4 disk games and 3 digital games. I have no films and no media other than the screen shots that I have taken.

     My fourth and final problem is the on/off button. For some reason I can't make my PS4 turn of just my pressing the off button(or pressing and holding), which puts it into standby mode, but I want to turn my PS4 totally off. So instead of actually using the power button I have to go through the menus of the PS4(which sounds worse than it is)to turn my PS4 off. This isn't a huge thing but it is a bit annoying.
   
Anyway that brings me to the end of my review for the PS4 as a whole, if there are any points you think I have missed you can either leave your ideas in the comments or Tweet me or hit me up on Facebook.
     All in all I absolutely love the PS4, and the bad things I have mentioned have little to no impact on your day-to-day gaming, they just would have been nice to see.
     I feel as though it wouldn't be right to give a whole console a score, so I will leave you with this. No matter what your console preferences you should definitely pick up a next(now current?) gen console. They are a master piece in gaming design and I am very very excited to see what this next year will bring us. If you are a gamer, you had better strap yourself in because what is to come, will be know for years to come, as the best time to be a gamer.
As always thank you for reading,
Ed
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Contrast: First Impressions

Hi guys,
 A game that sees you playing as an imaginary friend of a young girl who hasn't seen her farther in years. Also this friend has the ability to turn into a shadow. So just you average game then! This is a game that in principle should be really good and enjoyable to play, I say in principle because it isn't. I know I haven't beaten about the bush, this is a game that should play well, but is help back by the plethora of glitches and bugs in the game.
     Now as the title says these are my first impressions, so they may change by the time I review this game, but from what I have played you can barely play for 15 minutes before you will get a glitch. Now when I say glitch you will conjure an image of a table that defies gravity or a leg that bends the wrong way, if that was the case then you could put up with them. But when this game does glitches it DOES glitches, I'm talking about being a shadow and the camera can't cope with what you have just done, and thus will not move. Or when you as a shadow get squashed between something top and bottom, and what the game should do is pop you out the wall, but in some cases you don't do that and the then stuck in the wall with nothing to do!
     When this game does work, it works really well, and is a puzzling game to play. You have to combine certain shadows in order to progress through the level, and though the puzzles are never very hard they do a good job of making you feel a sense of achievement for completing them. Also the story behind you and the little girl(which I won't spoil) is one that is both beautiful and haunting at the same time. I don't quite know how it does this but you really connect with this little girl and can't help but play as well as possible to help this poor little girl out!
 That brings us to the end of my impressions of Contrast, if it can sort out the glitches then this could be a game to treasure playing, but until that is the case I can't recommend playing it as it will put you off playing the game once it has been fixed.
Many thanks for reading,
Ed
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Resogun review

Hi guys,
 Armageddon, that is the word that fuels Resogun, this is a game like no other I have played(bear in mind I never played any of the super stardust games) and I personally think it is brilliant. If you are unaware of the concept of Resogun, you are put in a small space ship that is tasked with saving the last humans. You can move up, down, left and right and shoot left and right but not up and down. That is it really, Resogun is one of those games where you have to play it to know what everyone is talking about.
      In any one level there are 10 humans to save, space ships called keepers come down from the top of the level and you have to shoot them all in order to release one of the humans from their cages. With me so far? I know it is quite complicated and the lack of any tutorials is a bit annoying for the first level, but after that you will know what to do well enough. The more enemy ships you defeat the higher you combo will get, the higher your difficulty the higher you combo can go, but also the faster your combo will disappear.
 

 As far as the health of your space ship goes, well it has none, you can only take one hit from anything and you will die. Thankfully you get 3 lives per level, but rest assured you will be hard pressed every time you raise the difficulty. In terms of content in the game, at first there appears to be very little(you will beat all the levels in a few hours) but then you through in the difficulty option and the constant need to beat your/your friends high score and you have a game that you can play for a very long time. Resogun is currently free with Playstation +(which is required to play online on the PS4) so you have no reason not to play this game. Be warned though it will suck you in to its addictive levels and make you want to play it for hours on end!
Time for the scores!
Length: If you only want to play it once it will only take you 2 hours but it is very fun and it is only a PSN game.                                                                                                                                                   7/10
Graphics: Not particularly noticeable but very smooth on the eye.                                                            8/10
Multiplayer: Just multiplayer versions of all of the normal levels.                                                              8/10
Sound: Satisfying as there is rarely a quite moment.                                                                                8/10
Gameplay: Really brilliant gameplay and is just a very fun game to play!                                                 9/10
 That gives us a total score of 8/10 a game I definitely recommend you play especially as it is currently free!
Thanks for reading,
Ed
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Battlefield 4 First Impressions

Hi guys,
 You may have seen in most gaming news outlets that people are saying that Battlefield 4 is a broken game and you shouldn't buy/play it. Now to some extent this is true, there are quite a lot of things in the game that need to be fixed. However that doesn't mean it isn't worth playing, so far I have only played for about 13 hours, but I can assure you that time will increase dramatically.
     This is a game that I can get lost in, a game that is worthy of many accolades, then the game crashes and you lose all your match progress(in my 13 hour play time my game has crashed about 12 times). This gets very irritating, though it takes about 30-60 seconds to get back into a match. From what I have played there hasn't been too much lag and when there has been it has been because I have been downloading a game in the background. To say that I only have 1.8 MB/s internet speed it is remarkable that I have had as little lag as I have!
     My one problem with the game(when it works) is the levelling system, every time you level up you don't get anything, every 2-3 level ups you get what is called a battlepack. With a battlepack you get a certain number of random things, they could be XP boosts, attachments, camos, knives and more! Now the problem is when you only get these every 2-3 levels you begin to feel that they are quite a low incentive for levelling up.
      The flip side to the poor levelling system is that everything is unlocked using it's own levelling system. So if you want to get a specific gun, say an assault rifle, then you have to get a certain amount of points with that section. I personally think this is a brilliant idea, as it is making me use my pistol and grenades more(to unlock more pistols and grenades). I feel this gives the game more diversity and the game is better because of it!
     They are my initial thoughts on the games Multiplayer, I haven't played all that much of the single player but that will be included in my final review. Over all I am beyond loving this game, and I can't wait for the day when it preforms as it should. Unlike most of the gaming community I have faith in EA and DICE to fix Battlefield 4, and get it to the standard it so desperately deserves. The last thing I will say on this game is, if you are a Battlefield fan then you should pick this game as you will appreciate where it has come from. However if you are thinking of picking this game up from the point of view of someone who hasn't played any previous BF games, I would advise waiting for a few months until it is in a better state to be played.
That's all for now check back soon for more exciting PS4 content!
Ed

Looking Ahead to 2014

Hi guys,
 This is my first post in 2014, I know I have been away from your screens for some time, but I am back now and I am more passionate than ever to bring you awesome content that you will enjoy. As you may be aware over Christmas I was lucky enough to get a Playstation 4, so I am now part of the next generation. I currently have Battlefield 4, CoD Ghosts, AC IV: Black Flag and LEGO Marvel. I also have the 3 PS+ games available, Contrast, Resogun and now Don't Starve. You can expect coverage of all of these games in the coming weeks and months.
      This was just a quick post to tell you what is coming your way, check back soon for more posts on all things Playstation.
For now,
Ed

Top 5 Things I Am Looking Forward To With The Playstation 4

Hi guys,
 Now that the Playstation 4 has been released world wide(sorry Japan) I thought I would give you a run down of the top 5 things I am looking forward to with the PS4. The show must go on!
 1)Share features:
                         If you aren't aware in replace of the start and select buttons on the Dualshock 3, the Dualshock 4 has a share button and a options button. The share lets you take a screen shot of what ever is on your screen at the time. This feature will for me personally be really amazing, you can expect many more gaming diary's with screen shots in them to come in the future!
2)Naughty Dog:
                       Naughty Dog are a development company who have been the creators of(among others) the Uncharted series and The Last of Us. Both of which set a new bench mark for what a gorgeous games looks like. On top of that they have made storys that will encapsulate you until the credits role. With the teaser of Unhcarted 4 at the launch of the PS4 in NA, and then this teaser from Todd Stashwick who narrated the teaser.

 We are sure to be in for a treat when we get more details of Uncharted which will more than likely be at E3 2014!!
3)Dualshock 4:
                   

                     The Dualshock 4 is the single biggest aesthetic change to the PS4, as you can see above the size has changed dramatically, with the Dualshock 4 being considerably larger, also with the addition of the touch pad, we are sure to get some unique gameplay features!
4)Better graphics:
                         Obviously this goes without saying but the PS4 will be able to put out far, far better graphics compared to the PS3. The PS4 has a whopping 8GBs of RAM, where as the PS3 had a meagre 512 MB of RAM, that means the PS4 has 16 times the amount of RAM the PS3 had!! I don't know a thing about the in depth workings of the PS4 but rest assured, you eyes are in for a feast with the PS4.
5) PC Master race:
                           You will only have to spend a few minutes looking though the comments of a gaming video on You Tube to see that everybody is arguing that the PC has better graphics and general higher quality. The key word wrong in that statement is has, no no no it HAD better graphics and a HAD a higher quality, but as we console gamers walk into the next generation of gaming, no more can they hold anything over our heads, we are for the first time in history; truly equal.

That brings me to the end of all the things I am looking forward to with the PS4, and no matter your console preference the coming years are going to be the most exciting time there has ever been for a gamer!
Thank you for reading,
Ed

Interview: Tim Browne(N1tch)

Hi guys,
I am very excited and pleased to bring you all an exclusive with the lead game designer  on Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag multiplayer, Tim Browne! I do hope you all enjoy the insight into the multiplayer of one of the biggest games of 2013, without further ado here it is:

1) What is it like to develop the multiplayer for a game with a fan base the size of which AC has?

In a word ‘Awesome!’. We have such a great community who are very supportive makes things really great. That said when I first started it was a little daunting. Fans and players have very high expectations so we know we have to make a game that lives up to these.

2) What was the biggest problem you faced whilst developing Black Flag's multiplayer?
This year we were very ambitious. Partly on some of the technical obstacles we wanted to overcome and partly on some of the new features we wanted to give to the players. Developing on the Next Generation of consoles also came with its challenges but the 1^st parties have given us huge amounts of support to allow us to be part of their fantastic launch titles.

3) What academic route did you take to end up in your current position?
I didn’t know I was going to be a game designer back when I was finishing high school. I actually wanted to be a Paramedic at the time so the route I took when I went to college was more focus on Health and Social care. That said I did do a course in computer programming (not that I remember so much of it now). I spent a lot of time modding maps in several games and when I was 18 I sent out examples to lots of companies. One of them loved my work and offered me a job as a level designer so you can see things have changed since 15 years ago!

4) Where did the inspiration come from to put Game Lab into the game?
This came about partly from the community and their discussions on the forums and twitter. Often there are abilities in the game that get discussed and players would talk about how they would change it or how some would just outright ban some of them. We started discussing ‘what if we could allow players to ban certain abilities’ and this is where the initial idea came from. After we though more about it we said ‘why stop at just banning an ability, why not allow players to make their very own modes’ and so Game Lab as it is today was born from that.

5) Did you ever consider holding a beta for Black Flag?
We do have a beta program but this is known as a closed beta. We use this to do stress tests on servers and check aspects like the match making of the game. We also used it to stress test the clan system. To make a beta that is open for the public would take a great deal of time and we currently work on roughly a yearly iteration. If we did a beta like that we wouldn’t have the resources to be able to have as many great features we have in Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag multiplayer.

6) What are your thoughts on the next generation of consoles?
I’m very excited about the next generation of consoles. I have both pre-ordered and I know I’m going to have a hard time deciding which one to play on and which game!

7) Would you like to see a competitive scene form around AC games?
I think there already is a competitive scene around the AC games but its not very big at the moment. Oh amazing community however have made it grow year on year and I’d love to see it get much bigger. I’d actively encourage people to run their own tournaments and leagues which I know some of the community already so. Also with the addition of Game Lab this allows players to create their own modes to run tournaments on so I think we’re going to see an even more competitive scene developing over time.

8) Ubisoft is known for having passionate workers. What is it like to work in such an enviroment?
Having been in the industry for 15 years now I can say that this environment is one of the most exciting, challenging and rewards I’ve worked in. The drive and passion that I see from my co-workers is fantastic and we have a great team spirit here.

9) What games have you worked on the past?
Assassin’s Creed III, Operation Flashpoint Red River, Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising, Pirate of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, Batman Begins, Predator: Concrete Jungle, DJ Decks and FX, Rogue Ops and Blade. That covers PC and consoles from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all the way back to the original PlayStation.

10) How did you feel when you started reading the reviews for Black Flag?
Similar to previous game launches. I was nervous, excited and curious. The reviews have been great and some high praise has come through for multiplayer and in particular, Game Lab and the improvements we did on Wolfpack.

11) What games did you play as a child that inspired you to enter the gaming industry?
A lot! I’d say one of the earliest games I remember played was Chuckie Egg on the Acorn Electron which I still occasionally play on online emulators. Growing up I had both Atari and Amiga machines and then progressed on to consles. Other games I remember fondly from a long time ago are Road Rash, Bomberman and Worms.

12) What inspires you in your day to day work?

There is a lot that I get inspiration from. Things like TV shows, movies, other games. This will sound a little cheesy but comments on twitter from fans are very inspirational and they can really spurn you on. Also because Assassin’s Creed is such a big internationally known game I get them at random through day and night which is really cool.

 

Thank you very much for reading, and a special thanks to Tim for doing the interview with me.

Ed

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My thoughts of the week

Hi guys,
Firsly I recently surpassed 5,000 views on my blog, and I would like to thank each and every one of you who has come onto my blog and read even the smallest of articles. I hope to continue producing articles that interest you are provoke thoughts of your own! Anyway enough of the soppy rubbish the show must go on!
    To mark the special occasion of passing 5K views, I thought is was high time to start a new series of articles! So I welcome you to my thoughts of the week, in these posts, I will be talking about many different ideas or thoughts I have had about gaming that don't really deserve their own post! Let's get on with it:
 Current and Next gen multiplayers: Due to that fact that this year particularly a lot of people will be upgrading to a next gen console, and many people will be staying with their current consoles. That will mean that multiplayer lobbys will be considerably lower in population than last year. Last year there were 3 platforms that most game could be on: the PS3, the PC and the Xbox 360, however this year there are 5 platforms to play a game on: PS3, PC, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Does it concern you that current gen multiplayers may be considerably under populated in comparison to last year?
 User Created content in more games: I know it is a stupid thought, but just imagine if every game you bought has the ability to create your own content!  Now the main problem from the developers point of view, is money, the commodity that is rumoured to keep the world going! As it stands dev's make a lot of money from DLC and micro-transactions(which are technically DLC but anyway!) so if they were to introduce UCG into every game, they would have to sell the game for considerably more money in the first place. You would be looking at around £100 just for the game! I can dream though.
Developer's working on the same project: A project that would see at least 2 major developing company's join arms and create one super awesome game, this is more realistic that my above thought, but still unlikely. Just because a game has been made by two company's doesn't mean the game will sell more copies than if it had been made my just one company. So each company would more than likely make a loss due to the same size team being used, but only half the profits coming it. Just think of it though a game that saw both Activision and DICE teaming up to create one mega shooting game!
     Once you have finished drooling over my last thought I have the unfortunate news of telling you that this post in now over! I do hope you have enjoyed if you have, you can click here to tweet about it!
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Thanks for reading
Ed