Far Cry 3 Review

Cool Jungle, Bro

One of the beautiful sights of Rook Island

I must say that I've developed quite a fondness for sandbox games. Whereas some people are paralyzed by the ton of things to do, I become obsessed with trying to do all of them. Far Cry 3, developed by Ubisoft, was honestly not on my radar, but I was given the opportunity to try it out. Let me tell you, this game is a lot of fun, and if you're looking for yet another game to scratch that sandbox itch, there is really no way to go wrong with this game.

I'll start with what is the weakest element of the game so far, which is the story. The main narrative begins with with a group of friends vacation in the Pacific islands somewhere, and they end up skydiving over Rook Island. It seems their landing was rockier than normal because it landed them in the grips of a drug and human trafficking ring of pirates somehow, managed by the intense Vaas Montenegro. After a bungled stealthy escape attempt, the game's hero, Jason Brody, manages to run for his life through the jungle before he passes out. A man residing with the local Rakyat rebels, Dennis, saves you from certain death and tries to empower you to save your friends and support the local cause. He simply sets Jason off on his quest into the dangerous jungle. As Jason points out to him, he's never even shot a gun in his life, but so goes the story of a bro who becomes a hero. (Hebro?)

After finishing some introductory steps, the whole of Rook Island becomes Jason's oyster to crack. Along with following the story, there are a number of side activities to follow. First, in similar fashion to the Assassin's Creed series, climbing to the top of radio towers reveals portions of the map to better navigate the terrain and find secrets, and there are many secrets. Chests containing ammo and money, ancient relics, memory cards with pirate logs, and letters from WWII are littered all over the island. Next, there are outposts in every square area of the map; by overtaking these areas for the rebels, the amount of enemies reduces making the majority of that section relatively safe for passage.

There is nothing creepy about this scene.

The game even rewards Jason with more XP based on how stealthily these outposts are claimed. As much as I enjoy this, given my preference for stealth, I can't help but feel bad for the players who prefer to waltz in with guns blazing. The game even rewards you for stealthy takedowns better than normal shooting. Still, taking over these areas are fun, and when you're done, they become fast travel points replete with a locker that acts as a mini-shop and extra sidequests including assassination missions and rare animal hunting. What remains baffling still is that when you're done, the local rebels drive in with a handful of guys holding machine guns. Almost all the rebels hold machine guns. Why can't they take over these places themselves? Better yet, why can't you recruit them to help you? The connection is so obvious there.

Personal progression through the game is represented by a strange tattoo involuntarily given to Jason early in the game. Utilizing a skill tree system with three branching paths, as you learn skills, the tattoo grows down your forearm, a symbol of your growing skill as a warrior. Great games have great skill trees, and this one is no exception with unique abilities like kicking an enemy away from you as you pull his grenade clip or taking down a guard stealthily and using his knife to kill another one. However, those great skill trees don't always need great backstories, and this tattoo, which grows on its own without ink, only has a ridiculous explanation. Circling back to the story, this ultimately makes Jason's story of a simple partying twenty-something turned guerilla warrior seem like it could only possibly appeal to the already empowered single heterosexual white male audience that most video games are already marketed towards. It's a rather shameless plea for their rapt attention. You can already imagine Jason's friends after the end game going, "Cool tat, bro!" For a game that is enough fun to appeal to anyone, it is sad to have a sellout protagonist geared towards a niche demographic. That said, to Jason's credit, he is not silent in a story that demands he speak up, one of my gripes with Dishonored before.

Back to the good, though, Rook Island bears one of the most fascinating terrains I've explored in video games. The designers really went through a lot of trouble to create a huge area that is actually believable as a setting. With only endless waters surround Rook Island as a hidden wall around the whole setting, the environment  of Far Cry 3 is really yours to travel and have fun with. The terrain has many elevations ranging from tall mountains to underground caves. Every time I found a waterway that led to the middle of the land via a winding cave system, I was in awe. However, getting lost is not really an option. The map allows you to set way points to any objective, outpost, or mission, and the minimap is handy enough to help you navigate the local terrain without popping open the main map too often. I think it could afford to have mulitple zoom options (like the one in Grand Theft Auto IV), though, which would help with fast driving segments over and around hills where you can't see the road ahead too well.

Seriously, look at this.

Along with the varied topography, Rook Island features equally varied wildlife populating the area. As I said, you are given missions to hunt some of these animals, but otherwise, they are roaming free waiting to be picked off. Although you are not rewarded with any XP for the endeavor, the game features a crafting system that utilizes the hides from the deer, boars, tigers, and whatnot wandering in the wild. At the beginning of the game, Jason's ability to carry ammo and money is limited until he can craft larger carriers for all his stuff. Each time you craft an item, the next size up usually requires the hide of an animal in a completely different section of the island, which encourages more exploration and risk taking.

Also in each area are different color classes of flora, which Jason can use to craft syringes that enhance his performance (ahem) and abilities. I won't deny that all of these systems are useful and provide more fun to have in this well-developed game, but once again, the writers ask me to suspend a lot of disbelief. Jason is immediately knowledgeable in the art of hunting and skinning an animal, though his grunts of disgust never dissipate regardless of how often he does it. Slicing leaves off of plants is an easier skill for me to believe he can figure out on his own, but his willingness to shove syringes in his arm repeatedly tells me that he should've been in rehab instead of traveling the world. Oh, and this is all without going into his divinely conceived recipes and crafting diagrams for this stuff. And can anyone explain why he needs two deer hides to make a so-so wallet, but he can't craft a larger wallet with either more deer hides or better utilization of large hides? How does he know he needs a tapir? Has he ever seen one before?

Far Cry 3 features a plethora of weaponry to fit your killing desires. On top of covering essentially every class of firearm you could desire, it also feature multiple types of each, including a bow and arrow to make you feel like Rambo. (Rambro?) Then, if that doesn't sate you, you can purchase attachments to modify almost each gun to your liking, such as better sights and silencers. I have never played a game carrying an arsenal of bow and arrow, silenced sniper rifle, and silenced assault rifle before, but it makes me feel awesome. If the price for any high class weapon seems prohibitive, climbing the aforementioned radio towers and reestablishing radio access to the locals opens up higher classes of weapons for free. With all the XP and money you can earn from sniping random pirate camps and the like, this game is practically giving you more power away for little effort. It could probably afford to be a little more restrictive with the weapons, but I can't complain while I'm having fun accomplishing my tasks with deadly accuracy. The only problem is the backstory with the skills designates that until you reach a certain point in the main narrative, you will be stuck a limited set of skills to unlock and a surplus of skill points waiting to be spent. I personally recommend breezing through the story at a quicker pace to make the skill tree more accessible sooner.

To accompany the continuously fun gameplay, the graphics are really gorgeous. Not simply a console port, the settings allow players to really ramp it up and make it look quite lush. Admittedly, since The Witcher 2, this is the first game in a while that I couldn't run on max settings without sacrificing playability, but even on lowered settings, the game looks really good. An additional bonus is that human and animal character models all look good and animate believably, though the game suffers from the common trope of giving the most discernible details to the main characters, leaving the citizens of Rook Island to live with doppelgangers meandering about.

The majority of textures look good and are fairly passable up close, i.e., I did not focus on muddiness like I do in other games. The plants are all gorgeous from afar, too, but hiding in a bush does reveal the cracks in the rendering work. I should also mention that I experienced zero texture pop-in. The soundtrack varies from tribal to techno, which is all fitting without any one song standing out from the rest. Voice acting is all handled well and words generally match lip movements on all characters and NPCs. What is confusing is that the locals and rebels all speak Malay convincingly  but when it comes to English, they vary between a Pacific Islander accent and a Kiwi accent, going so far as to occasionally say, "Kia ora," when Jason passes by. I don't get it, but it's a detail the majority of gamers won't be bothered to notice.

Your digital camera acts as a way to tag and track enemies. Also, you can just look at the graphics better.

Control in Far Cry 3 is fairly comfortable with a typical mouse and keyboard setup on the PC. Most elements react well to input. The worst offender seems to be driving vehicles, where using a keyboard clearly lacks the nuance afforded by a controller with thumbsticks and pressure-sensitive trigger buttons. There is essentially one gear, and it's pedal to the metal. Also, the game allows you to maneuver the camera while driving, which I don't suggest doing ever because you'll drive off a cliff and not know why. In that regard, the game is a lot like real life! Another navigation gripe is the game's sensitivity to walking over small edges. I complained about something similar in Borderlands 2, but here it rears its ugly head in the silliest areas, requiring you to literally jump through doorways to proceed inside a house. Jason's ability to climb ledges is restricted to ones with overhanging ropes or vines that he doesn't actually use as grips despite their presence. Coming off of Dishonored, with the best first-person platforming ever, I found it jarring.

Finally, the game is a little too particular about the exact angle and distance at which you can interact with objects, such as found money and bodies to be looted. You have to be the in a precise position before it'll prompt you to do anything. This also emulates real life but in an unpleasant way. With all the money to steal and bodies to loot, you just want to grab and go. The worst culmination of all these came when I wanted to open a chest on a porch. I could not walk right onto the porch, of course, but the roof over it was too low for me to jump onto the porch. However, the extra foot the edge of the porch set me away from the chest prevented me from opening it. I had to climb nearby stairs on the other side of the house, jump onto and over a lounge chair placed at the corner, and maneuver myself to the chest that way. Imagining this scenario in real life yields only puzzlement.

Regardless of all these meaningless faults, I must reiterate that Far Cry 3 is a ridiculous amount of fun. The narrative notwithstanding, you will just have so much fun actually playing the game. The sandbox style is remarkably rewarding, and it affords you to have a very meaningful time doing nothing important. There is just the right amount of things to do written into the gameplay, and there are enough enemies, animals, and caves to pursue in between these moments. Combat is fun and provides a silly amount of options to play the way you want. Even as frustrating as it is to hear a tiger growling right behind you while you are picking off a pirate base one guard at a time, it's these unique moments that separate the game from others. I don't know what else I can tell you. Go play it!

Images obtained by playing the games through Uplay through Steam. It's like video game launch Inception.

Borderlands 2 Review: Episode II

That, My Friends, Was a Good Game

Lava! Environment effects! Purple!

It is probably about time that we address the elephant left in the room since the first part of my review. There may have been a particularly important feature of Borderlands 2 I completely neglected to mention. The game features cooperative play with up to four players at once. Oops. Now, we will talk about it, and you will learn more about me. The previous game also featured co-op, but getting it to work was often a mess. First, you had to sign up for and log into GameSpy. Then, you couldn't just join a friend's game, no. They had to invite you and vice-versa if you wanted a friend to tag along. Sometimes those invitations didn't work, even as recently as right before Borderlands 2 was released. (I was finishing up the DLC, so I could mentally move on.) It was cumbersome, especially for someone who would rather play games alone.

That's right. As I've discussed before, I like playing a lot of games solo, and I even play some games with fully-featured multiplayer modes solely in single-player mode. Borderlands 2 may be one of the most obvious games to play with your friends, but I'm happy to let all my solo-and-loving-it brethren that there is no loss of enjoyment playing this game by yourself. The entire experience still remains captivating, and while some parts feel a little too tough for a single person to tackle, I rarely pined for another human being to join my game. That said, I did test out the co-op, and it works so much better. I really could gush all day about how much better it is. You literally just have to launch the game, and all your friends are displayed right on the home screen. Not only that, your buddy list displays what levels they are, what story missions they are on, and whether the game thinks that you will make a good fit for each other based on the previous two criteria. To join the game, one must simply click on the person, verify that he or she wishes to join that game, and the home screen is reloaded showing all present players. I also thought it was cute that the person hosting the game gets a little crown on his or her username.

I know what you're thinking. Bandits can't spell.

When playing co-op, everyone is actually free to meander about in any given area, but the group has to travel together to get to new areas. The host controls what mission everyone is trying to complete, too. If everyone is around the same point in the story, completing these missions together means completing them in your own game, which is great because you don't have to backtrack. If your host friend is significantly ahead of you in story, the game will prompt you to skip a mission when you are faced with it later on. Coupled with a brand new but really obvious mini-map, it's also easier to find your friends if you join in the middle of whatever they're up to. Borderlands 2 also recognizes there are more players and appropriately increases the number of enemies in any given encounter. It can sometimes feel insane, but it's a great way to gain more experience if you're particularly good at beating up bad guys. Experience and items other than currency are not shared. When everyone is done fighting for who gets to grab a weapon or shield, if someone is charitable enough to give a weapon to a teammate, the game has a sharing menu to transfer items between each other. I found it a little wonky to use, but it is better than dropping the item on the ground for your friend to pick up. Other than being less cruel, the game also exaggerates item dropping, and a nice gesture could turn into a friend chasing after a flying shotgun.

Aside from my problem with object edges mentioned in the last part, I had a few game-breaking issues, which are worth mentioning. At one point, I was climbing up a long ladder and hit the reload key, and I was no longer able to move on or leave the ladder. I couldn't bring up any in-game menus except the one to escape. A friend was actually playing with me, and I had to leave him in the dust while I backed out. That was annoying because we already cleared out the gauntlets of enemies, and I was trying to finish this one mission before going to bed. I was faced with returning and running through throngs of baddies just so I could sleep soon. At another time, I went to an area as dictated by a story mission, but I picked up four additional side missions while I was there. I like to finish all the side missions in an area before I leave to turn them in, and this became my downfall. The game froze on three separate occasions. Given that there is no manual or quick save feature, I would force the game to quit and return only to find myself with all my side missions incomplete (and unique loot lost). I don't know what was special about the place, but I ended up quitting after finishing each mission just to ensure the game was saved appropriately. Finally, I was tackling a round in Fink's Slaughterhouse when I killed the last enemy shown on the minimap only to have absolutely nothing happen. I had to quit the game to make the entire multi-wave mission reset. I could've melted metal with my anger on that one.

This was my prettiest gun, and the game makes it easy for me to show you my weapon.

Moving on, I did finish the game last night, and it was much better than the first one by far. In general, more happens in one story mission than happened in the entire first game, or at least, that's how it comes off. The game goes to more lengths to show you things happening and have you interact rather than just letting you hear about it in your earpiece. There are some exciting sequences with the characters from the last game joining you on your adventure. Much of it happens during player-controlled gameplay, though, so be sure to actually watch what they're doing, or you'll just hear nonsense in your ear about something happening out of sight. Overall, though, I witnessed a lot of bombastic action on my screen in beautiful color. There is even a brief visit to good ol' Fyrestone from the first game, which reflects how things have changed in the years past. The endgame was really satisfying, but this is mostly because of all the story content from before. I completed every darn side mission I could find on the way to the end (with the exception of the survival rounds in Ore Chasm), and on top of doing so much, I learned a lot about what is and was going on in the world of Pandora. Borderlands 2 also did not set me up for an underwhelming ending like the the first game. I didn't beat the boss this time and think, "That's it?!" I also felt the final boss experience was appropriate. The whole scenario was not an absurdly tough encounter, though I did die as a result of my own stupidity once. After imbibing so much of the craziness, it was nice to have a simple encounter that just looked really big but was over quickly. I just wanted to go home, and the game let me do so without issue.

In total, I spent 77 hours playing Borderlands 2, and now there is DLC out for it. There are also a lot of Badass challenges I didn't complete, such as finding out more about the four new vault hunters. I'll get to all that once I catch up with all my other games that have been vying for my attention. Meanwhile, if you haven't bought this game, go do so. It's pretty. It's funny. It's fun even for people who suck at shooters. There are few reasons not to play it.

Borderlands 2 Review: Episode I

Making heads explode in stylish fashion

If you played the first game, you'd understand what a graphical step up this is.

The original Borderlands is one of those games that I resisted for a while. Touted as a "first-person role-playing shooter," my hesitation laid in the "shooter" part of the genre description. It was never my strongest category – I can't aim to save my life –, but the cel-shaded style made me impeccably curious. Finally, the shining light, a Steam sale, came around and convinced me to purchase, and I'm happy I did. Sure, I enjoyed the game, but I'm mostly thankful that it prepared me for Borderlands 2 to knock my socks off.

In almost every way, Borderlands 2 is a complete improvement over its predecessor. I'm only about halfway through the game, but I've been enjoying every minute of it. If you are new to the game and are wondering how the game exists as a FPRPS, let me explain. Like any first-person shooter, you are constantly staring down gun sights and have an array of weapons available to you to destroy your enemies, of which there are many. However, all weapons and protection are randomized. Every weapon you pick up is unlike every other weapon available in your game or other players' games, and they all have a set of statistics, which you can use to compare them against what is already in your inventory. Weapons can even have elemental characteristics, and some emulate other weapon classes, such as an awesome assault rifle I had which shot bullets like rockets. Building upon this, the RPG elements go much further. Your character gains experience points as he/she defeats enemies, increasing your level. You gain skill points to dump into speccing the character to your taste. Battles come across as typical firefights, but the fact is math and the roll of the die is still at work here. Shooting an enemy reveals the amount of damage caused, which is based on a number of behind-the-scenes factors, so shooting someone in the head does not automatically kill him like it does in typical military shooters – it definitely is highly possible if you're using a sniper rifle, but if the enemy is levels above you or has a strong shield, don't say I didn't warn you.

The original four protagonists play a big vocal part this time around.

More or less, the game is the ideal setting for someone that depends on the numbers game, and it's hard not to enjoy because it is continually giving you loot. You can barely walk a foot in Pandora, the planet on which it takes place, without encountering some kind of container to open. These range from small boxes with stacks of cash to huge chests with elaborate opening mechanisms containing rare weapons and ammo. In fact, there are so many, it is almost arduous to seek out every container in a small area, but the game rewards you with some precious finds sometimes. Borderlands 2 threw in extra rewards for killing, using different weapons, exploration, and even opening containers via its Badass Ranking system. Performing all varieties of challenges that are entirely based on playing the game, you are frequently rewarded with Badass tokens which boost different characteristics as you redeem them. It is literally impossible to play without earning them, which is what makes playing the game continually rewarding on top of the leveling and skill point system. These Badass boosts also apply to all characters you create for the game, so starting over with a different class can still come with a little help (if you don't turn the feature off).

Moving around Pandora and shooting your foes is all fairly simple to control. I am currently playing on a PC, and the keyboard and mouse layout is similar to other shooter titles. It is also completely customizable if it doesn't meet your specific needs. Personally, I remapped the melee button, V, to my middle mouse button to keep the majority of attacking on the mouse like it should be. Each character has a remarkably high and floaty jump, which is useful for navigating the terrain and finding additional secrets on far off ledges. It definitely does not resemble a realistic jump that a human could perform, but the majority of the game is exaggerated in its style. This sequel also improved the running speed from the first game, so now one can breeze through a pile of dead bodies on the way to an area's exit with ease. The only problem is that the land has occasional tiny hidden walls preventing the player from moving forward if he/she doesn't jump over them. Seriously, you could be running along a road and get stuck on the edge of a small flat rock that is exactly the same as one you simply ran over earlier. When trying to run and strafe around enemies, it can be very frustrating to stop in your tracks because of a pebble the game decided is abnormally tall. (Note: I personally call this frustration, Geometry Wars.)

I know this looks like a normal tea party, but it isn't. It really isn't.

Probably the greatest glory of Borderlands 2 is its presentation. The completely cel-shaded graphics make it stand apart from every other shooter and most other RPGs. The environments and enemies are all really bright and colorful, and there are many animated elements abound, especially if you play on the PC with its added particle effects. Characters are also more animated this time around with exciting features like moving lips and limbs that the first game didn't find as important for some baffling reason. None of them are too over the top, but at the very least, they move around the environment instead of acting like mission boards stuck in place. The game also went bigger with explosions, both bombs and bodies, which makes the battlefield more exciting to navigate and watch during intense firefights. The AI of the enemies has also been upped a little. Notably, humanoid characters will actually dodge and move around as you shoot, and the variety in the packs you face means dodging Psychos coming right at you while avoiding gun fire from enemies afar. There are also some fun areas where the enemy types are varied, involving two or more species, who may or may not fight each other in between attacks against you. It is very frenetic, and often it can be challenging to deal with if you're like me and lack a real tactical approach to shooters. (My approach: "Please don't hit me. Please stay in place while I line up this sniper rifle crosshair. Thank you for participating in your death. Have a nice day.") Every now and again, this new AI initiative to move around a bit more can break the immersion when an enemy spends his entire time dodging or hopping between platforms while you just watch in curious awe.

The music is also way improved. Although the soundtrack features a similar combination of Jesper Kyd, Raison Varner, and the Sonic Mayhem duo (absent: Tim Larkin of Myst: Uru and Myst V fame), the background tracks are more present and demand more attention. Aside from the intensity of music during battle, the ambient and undulating tracks in the Caustic Caverns or the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve bring a lot of delight while you meander through their maze-like environments. There is also a special place in my heart for the song that plays during the gauntlet in Fink's Slaughterhouse. There are still some songs in more desolate areas, which go mostly unnoticed, but the overall execution is more attractive.

I went looking for a hotel room, and then I remember that you don't sleep in video games. I'm gonna go.

The final evidence of the ante being upped is the story. Let's be honest. The first Borderlands didn't have much of a story. You landed on Pandora and went looking for a fabled vault, and that was kind of all it gave you. The ending was also sudden and on the side of WTF. Borderlands 2 fixes that by providing more explanation not only for your current actions but for the events of the first game, too. The four protagonists are all back and play a heavy role in leading you along your bread crumb trail towards the ending. Taken out of the player's hands this time, they are given the opportunity to interact with each other more and be the sources of much of the game's humor  Although there is a linear set of story missions to pursue, the game also features a ridiculous amount of side quests. However, compared to the first game, even the fetch quests manage to engage the player with the insane characters more, sometimes via their constant comments on whatever you're doing or via ECHO recording you find littered about. (I particularly enjoyed the awkward recordings of Lillith and Roland you find on one side quest.) Even better, many of the side quests are now multi-part affairs which sometimes take you to multiple locations you wouldn't have explored otherwise. Written mostly by Anthony Burch, known for his video web series with his sister, "Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'?", the plot is a thousand times more intriguing, funny, and complex. There are some sad moments, too, which I was not prepared for at all. It all goes a long way towards immersing the player in the game.

I'm still playing the game and will probably remember more to comment on when I write the second half of this review. For now, all I can tell you is the Borderlands 2 is an engaging and rewarding experience that goes a long, LONG way towards improving upon its predecessor, which is now unmistakably barren compared to this iteration. Oh yeah, it also doesn't take place almost exclusively in the desert. You're welcome.

Part II

All images taken via Steam's screenshot feature.

Never catching up with the present

Welcome to my gaming blog, From the Backlog. As the title should suggest, the video games I'll be focusing on are typically older, some of them by a few months and others by years. A while ago, I committed to playing only one major game at a time, which means awesome games come out, but I ignore them until I am finished with what I'm doing. (If someone wants to send me a review copy of a new game, I'm all ears.) Some people may be better adept to playing a few games at once, but I know that if I truly want to finish a game, I have to focus on it solely. Another reason I am behind the times is because I bought a Playstation 3 a few years after it came out, which means there were all kinds of games for me to play excluding new releases. Unless I quit my full-time job, I have games and will have games to play continuously for years. I also try to be frugal, so if I am only sort of interested in a new game, I will typically wait until it goes on sale for a price that meets my interest. (I will confess, I am a sucker for Steam sales.)

Beyond: Two Souls - One of those games I wouldn't mind receiving a review copy for.

Moving on, I'd like to note the kind of posts you should be expecting. Given that I will be playing games behind the times, I am not sure how relevant reviews will be by the time they go up. Instead, I'd like to offer up something possible more engaging: episodic blogging about my games, a subject discussed in this blog, which goes into why it is harder to review games in the same way one reviews movies. I often have a lot of insights into the games I'm playing, but I am not continuously taking notes. It would actually be easier for me to talk about the last couple hours of gaming as if I'm talking about my day. However, depending on how short a game is, I may still post reviews or post-mortems at the very least.

There are some games, which get me hot enough to buy them new and play them right when they come out. This year, I picked up The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: Enhanced Edition, which was just amazing. Seriously, it is one of the best RPGs I've ever played, and compared to a lot of games you see in this HD era, the absolutely gorgeous graphics were the icing on the gameplay cake. More recently relevant, I played Quantum Conundrum, developed by Kim Swift, who developed Narbacular Drop, which laid the groundwork for the amazing Portal. The game was certainly entertaining, though it invites comparisons to Portal that end up becoming unfair; it's possible the game was marred by being shoehorned into a smaller digital download production, but I still would not play down its entertainment value. Games still to come that I am looking forward to playing upon release are Borderlands 2, Dishonored, Assassin's Creed III, Bioshock Infinite, and many others.

Seriously, The Witcher 2 is gorgeous.

Aside from just talking about games I am or will be playing, I'd love to blog about my opinions about the video game industry and journalism. I am also planning some dissections of video games themselves, looking into the mechanics to make the industry successful and how they hit our id. (Not to be confused with id Software.) Whether they will interest this blog's likely tens of readers is yet to be seen, but I hope my rambling hits home with some of you. Back to games for the moment, you will most likely see me talking about RPGs and adventure games. I lean on those genres the most, though the original Bioshock showed me that I can attempt first-person shooters with my PC on super easy mode. My only gaming consoles are a PS3 and a PC. I have nothing against the 360; I just didn't choose one in the store. (If you'd like to buy me one, I'll play on it!) In the past, I've owned a PS2, Gamecube, Saturn, Genesis, and Gameboy.

Hopefully, they didn't just up the ante in the graphics department.

So thank you for taking the time to read this long-winded introduction. I do hope you return as I will try to post often or die trying. In the meantime, you can hit me up on the Twitter: @gilmeansjoy.

Beyond: Two Souls screenshot taken without permission from GameInformer.com.
The Witcher 2 screenshot taken myself via Steam.
Borderlands 2 screenshot taken without permission from the official website linked above.