Brett's Gaming Blog

If you are unfamiliar with the 2017 game Inside , maybe you will recognize Playdead's previous game Limbo , the black and white adventure of a young boy in a treacherous and puzzle filled world. Limbo was one of the first games to show the world that a unique small scope game could really be stellar and pull in a crowd. The games artistic style, side scrolling elements, and numerous ways to die, made it a staple, and all those motifs are carried over into this developers newest game. For context Limbo came to Xbox Live back in 2010, and besides porting the game to numerous other systems, Playdead has been working on this game ever since. Inside launched in mid 2016, putting six years between game releases. But when you play Inside you can see where all those hours over those years went. The first place you'll see all those man hours are in the environment and art. Although this game has a decidedly simplistic art style, the way Playdead designed it's levels is masterfu...

News broke yesterday that AAA game Scalebound by Platinum games and published exclusively for Xbox by Microsoft has been given the axe. This comes as a shock, because besides a what seemed like a normal delay from 2016, the game seemed perfectly on track. The game was originally revealed at E3 2014 as a hot new IP coming to Xbox adding to it's impressive first party line up. At this early stage in the console life cycle, enthusiast are eager to soak up any new ideas and welcome new IP into their hearts, and Scalebound was no different. It was even on my most anticipated of 2017 list. Now when it comes to Scalebound there are a few things we need to touch on. The big one is it's developer, Platinum Games. Platinum had long been known as a quality developer, by had been flying under the radar by the wider audience. Games like Bayonetta and Vanquish showed off their talents, and gathered them a niche audience. As bigger publishers caught wind of all the good vibes this tea...

Yesterday's post was the start of my 2017 games list. Today I wanted to add onto the list and showcase some more games coming out a bit further into the year. The list started yesterday with Horizon Zero Dawn, Pyre, and Pit People. Today the list contains games that are all looking to come out in the first half of this year. First on the list is probably the one that could be the biggest hit, but also might have the biggest chance for failure. That is going to be Sea of Thieves from Rare coming to Xbox One. I can't find any concrete proof that his game is on schedule for the first half of this year (besides Wikipedia) so it might just be on track for some point in 2017, but I'm confident we will see the final game in the next 12 months. The developer Rare has kinda been twiddling their thumbs for a long time, making xbox avatars and Kinect Sports, but it's easy to see the glint in their eye for bigger and better things. The one thing I love about Rare are their gam...

New year, new games, right? 2016 was a great year for games, and stay tuned for a list of things I liked last year, but the future is now, and it's time to see what is going to be playable soon, and what we will hopefully be blogging and talking about next. There are very few games I tell myself are going to be day one purchases, so when I decided to buy a game right up front it means a big deal to me. So all these games are contenders to be purchased on launch day for me. The first one is Horizon Zero Dawn. I don't typically get PS4 games, but I do make exceptions for great ones like The Last of Us, and the next one I think is going to be Horizon Zero Dawn. Now I said this was going to be a day one buy for me, but since this is a new IP and game I'll probably wait for some reviews before I decided to buy it, but from what I've seen so far the game looks like a complete blast, and has potential to be something really special. Pulling elements from games like Fa...

If you have never been on the Plants vs Zombies hype train, then for shame! They are one of the darn cutest new IP of the last decade. Their breakout strategy game back in 2009 started a PvZ craze that has spawned a sequel and now a few spin offs. The first spin off was Garden Warfare, a game that had no right to be as good as it was. It took a 2D cellphone game and turned it into a console third person shooter. It sadly came out at the same time as Titanfall, but I never kept my eye off of it and a year after it's release I really got into the multiplayer focused game. With a sequel to that game already released, the developer Popcap seemed to turn their turn their attention in a new direction, and have turned PvZ into a card battling game. Collectable card games have been a niche rage for I'd say 20 years now, with Magic the Gathering being the big dawg in town. But with the digital age a new crop of card adventures have come to the forefront, and the one setting the exa...

So when coming back to the game blog my first intention was to talk about all sorts of aspects of Final Fantasy 15, and now could not be a better time to dive into the story for me. I just spent the past weekend plowing through a good chunk of the latter half of the story. *Minor Spoilers* I guess... If you were unaware FF15 is divided into two parts, you start in an open world where half the story takes place, but 99% of the game play is, and then the second half of the story is delivered in a very linear fashion, with very little freeroam available. Now I have to say I'm not completely through to story yet, so I'm sure my opinions are going to change slightly, or at least I hope they do, but I have truly no clue what is going on in the story. I was following along for awhile, Prince Noctis was having a grand ol' time with his buddies. But once the real conflict started things started to get lost really quickly. The motivations of the characters outside the party and ...

I don't know if back is the right word, more like restarting? Maybe. So four years ago I starting this gaming blog. I enjoyed writing blog post on Facebook, but wanted a site to call my own, so I started on Blogger. I really wanted to be a game journalist, and although that would still be a dream come true, it's not a dream I'm still chasing. But I still really love video games. So that's why I'm coming back. Maybe it's just for me, but maybe it's for you too. The other reason I wanted to start writing again is Final Fantasy 15. This game has been a long time coming, and I can't help but want to talk about it with the world, as I have been doing for the past month. I was going to start back on the blog sooner, but I kept putting it off, like I do most things in life, especially creative endevors, and ending sentences. One thing that was holding me back was trying to make sure I had a voice, a cohesive message, but who am I kidding, I don't at all. ...