PixlBit

Did Julian say his girlfriend's birthday is on the 18th of this month? If so mine is also!

I bought Metal Gear V about a week ago when our semester ended and I've been playing it a lot since then. I'm on episode 10 and I've done a lot of the side ops that have popped up so far. I'm probably 15 hours in, I can't remember. I like it a lot so far and I think it's a fun open world stealth game. I don't like Big Boss' voice so far and I'm still waiting for more story to happen, but I think I'm enjoying the sandbox enough that I could probably stick with it to the end so I can see how the story turns out.

I played Peace Walker for the HD collection and I quit playing it at exactly the same point as Julian. In PW I also didn't like the interface or any of the management sim stuff with Motherbase. I've been surprised that I'm actually enjoying that stuff in Phantom Pain so far. This game definitely seems like a big open world console interation of what they did in Peace Walker, but the things about PW that turned me off seem more palatable this time around. I enjoy hunting down skilled soldiers and fultoning them out. It kind of becomes a tertiary objective during missions. Phantom Pain isn't necessarily the same Metal Gear I fell in love with in 2 and 3, but it's a cool open world stealth thing and I'll stick with it to see what happens.

I haven't played Halo 5 yet, and it pains me to say but I think I've become a casual Halo fan ever since Halo 4. Leading up to Halo 4 I had read all the novels and I was certain I would be prepared for the game but when that campaign ended I was scratching my head. I didn't like how they turned the Chief into a chosen one. Halsey and Cortana (Halsey's brain clone) had always told the Chief that the one thing he had on his side that none of the other Spartans did was luck, but it never went further than that. In Halo 4 the Librarian told him he was essentially the chosen one and his coming was planned all along. I don't like any of that.

Ever since Halo 4 I've continued to buy the novels but I haven't caught up on the newest ones. I've fallen into a casual fandom of this current Halo trilogy that's unfolding.

If that wasn't weird enough, things are taking a dark turn lately and I've actually been wanting to get the Legendary version of Destiny that came out this year (basically a GOTY edition) with all the expansions. I'm a Halo casual now and I might end up a Destiny player soon, what is even happening...

Glad you are enjoying Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it's definitely my game of the year. I have loved the Metal Gear Solid series since the first one on the original Playstation. It took me about 83 hours to beat the game, that was doing about 95% of the missions and side ops. This isn't a spoiler but you see credits like 4 times, so do not think you are done after seeing them the first time. I didn't think I was going to like the game due to everything I was hearing about it close to release.  It's definitely worth playing through to the end.

I just started playing Until Dawn, I am liking it quite a bit, every decision seems important and I am always curious what would've happened if I chose differently. My brother and I have been playing the hell out of Star Wars Battlefront, that game is pretty awesome.                 

Yeah, my thing is that nothing happened in the 8 hours I played, and I don't think anything interesting will happen 20 hours later. I didn't mention this in the show, but I found the areas ponderously boring to travel through, which is a surefire way to get me to lose interest in an open world game.

I get that thing about Burnout Paradise and how it doesn't have the same feel as the other Burnout games. I noticed it right away in the way the cars handle the first time I played the demo for it when it came out. I tried it more recently though and thought it felt very much like Burnout Revenge. The open worldness of it doesn't appeal to me much though. I know it was the new thing to do to get with the kids, but it turned me away from the series. I bought it, though, on a sale. I give it another try sometime. 

That's right, Revenge was the 4th one. I thought it was OK, like I said, but it just felt off. I also feel like they were really struggling to come up with additional mechanics to add after Takedown and what they ended up with just wasn't really a very satisfying addition.

I think a lot of the devs are working on the Need for Speed games now so maybe, maybe we'll get another game in the spirit of Burnout eventually.

I didn't like Revenge much at all at first. But I went back to a few years ago and loved it. I guess coming off of Burnout 3 made it seem to different or feel wrong, but with that influence out of the way, I really loved it. 

I heard something on IGN's podcast Unlocked about some of the original developers of Burnout forming a new studio and promising to do a racing game in the spirit of Burnout. I'm on board for that.

I also just got a Vita. I got it really cheap, I want to use for remote play. I did buy Final Fantasy VII-IX for it. I want to get Xenogears and maybe FINALLY play Final Fantasy VI and see what the fuss is about. I have a ton of free PS+ games for Vita, glad I "bought" them when I had the chance.

I am now 8 hours into FF IX and loving it. It's tougher than I remember, mainly because enemies have been ganging up on poor, squishy Vivi and killing him over and over again.

There's probably no way that FF VI can live up to the hype of people like me, but I really do believe it is the pinnacle of the franchise. It's not my favorite game in the series, but I can acknowledge that it is the best one. Kind of like how I can say that Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie, but my favorite one is Return of the Jedi.

I honestly bought my Vita just for remote play. The exclusives, like Freedom Wars and Dagonrompa are a nice bonus though.

To kind of piggy back on what Julian said, I think FF VI is absolutely the pinnacle of the franchise, but the problem it has is some of the stuff that was so mindblowing and innovative at the time (the Opera scene, having animated cut  scenes play out using the in the middle of a battle using the actual in battle engine) just aren't that impressive now that we're so far beyong the platform.

The good news is that's really all the game loses. The story is excellent, the mechanics are rock solid, and the game (although it can be slow in the way JRPGs are kind of natrually slow) is just plain fun. Just don't play the hideous mobile version!