Skyrim

In my professional opinion, as someone who has never had, nor will ever have a life, Skyrim is the single greatest thing in existence.

Why is this game so awesome? Because its always being updated and upgraded by thousands of fans everyday. There are thousands of mods for this game for just about everything you can imagine.

Skyrim was released in 2011, and it was awesome. It set a new standard for RPGs, one which no one else has been able to reach. The player roams a massive open world which a detailed and interesting history, free to do whatever they want. Want to save the world? sure. Someone you don’t like asks you to save the world? kill them and take their stuff.

It’s a game where you can do anything, or nothing.

The game has since been given so many unofficial upgrades that even four years later it’s still awesome, even more awesome than it was when it started.

The games open world  makes its perfect for adding new content, and there’s a lot of it. All of it free. At the time I am writing this there are 44,604 mods on nexus.

You  can use these mods to add a whole new element of realism and difficulty into the game, or do weird shit like ride a giant chicken.

The awesomeness of this game comes from limitless potential. anything can be added to it, and it never gets old.

If this game does have any problems its that the original game is boring now. I recently decided to play Skyrim on Xbox 360 instead of on PC, just to see what it was like without all the mods. It’s just boring by comparison.

To literally everyone, if you haven’t played Skyrim yet do so now. Go to steam or whichever source of gaming awesomeness you prefer, and get a copy of Skyrim, and after you have finished one of the best games ever made, install so many mods it unrecognizable and filled with uniquely Skyrim themed awesome.

Resonance of Fate

This is one of the most unique games I have ever played, The combat system is completely different from anything you have seen before. Resonance of Fate is very different from your typical JRPG.

Unlike  most Japanese games, which have become so similar and cliched  they might as well save time and give them all the same protagonist, Resonance of Fate is completely new.

  The story takes place in a world where humanity made the earth inhabitable. So to make up for their lack of earth they made a steampunk tower for everyone to live in, and of course its ruled over by rich elitist bastards at the top and the poor down below.

However the heroes don’t really care about any of this. They are Hired guns who only care about getting paid, and are willing do do anything for a few extra bucks.

The story is given to you slowly in little pieces as the heroes go about their days earning money killing mutants or doing whatever the rich bastards feel like paying them to do.

the combat is very different from anything else I have ever seen. You have guns and you shoot things, then you die. Then after continuing like this for about an hour or so you realize this game is quite difficult and requires a lot of strategy. There is a learning curve to this game and it doesn’t go easy on you, even right from the start.

The game is turn based, and the strategy comes from positioning as well as choice of weapons or equipment. Its not a game where you can just play the main story and get to the end. Try to skip the side quests and your under-leveled characters will be quickly and easily crushed.

Resonance of Fate is perfect for anyone tired of the same old games and looking for something different. Its a great choice for anyone looking for a challenge. Its the best game there is for any fan of Japanese games, sick of seeing the same thing over and over again.

So if you want something unique try Resonance of Fate.

Final Fantasy 13

I’ve talked about some the best, and highest rated games out there. Now I’m going to talk about a game I like even if 80% of the people who have played it absolutely despise it.

I can understand why this game is so hated. It’s very hateable, it has the slowest start of any game I have ever played and it replaced the open final fantasy RPGs with shiny extremely linear corridors.

The tutorial level is basically the first 20 hours of gameplay. During this time you will be extremely confused as the story changes between character point of view as well as date, introducing new parts of the story in such a way you can only really understand it if you already know whats going to happen and what has happened in the past.

The biggest complaint comes from final fantasy fans, who were expecting a big open fantasy world and were instead forced to run down a series of hallways.

Despite all this and the huge amount of hate it gets I like this game.

The worlds looks good, and the combat is fun. Those of you who played the game for a few hours before falling into a coma from boredom might question my sanity from that last statement, but its true. Once you have gotten past the INCREDIBLY long tutorial and finally  reached the actual game, the classes become more distinct and the battle require more than just pushing A.

The best part of the game is when you reach the open exploration on pulse. This does take a long time to get to, but once your here the game gets a lot better

This is a fun game for anyone with extreme amounts of patience, and even if it is hard to defend with all the problems I like it anyway.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

This game has a huge world, incredible plot depth, excellent combat and highly customizable characters. But it’s still not that awesome. The biggest problem for this game is not that its bad, it’s that it has to compete with incredibly good RPGs like Skyrim.

The visuals are cartoonish, and it looks similar to Fable or World of Warcraft. The environments look really good in most places, especially outside. Inside dungeons however the visuals are repetitive. It looks good, just not as good as Fable.

The world is huge with plenty of caves and dungeons to explore, filled with loot. there are Five different regions each with multiple different areas. The game is based on the design for an MMO and the size of the map reflects this. The problem here is that Skyrim does it better. This map is awesome but its competing with Skyrim. The sheer size of the map however is better than Dragon age: Origins and much more open.

The story was written by a New York times best seller R. A. Salvatore . It’s very engaging and you can play for hours without ever getting bored. It’s a much more interesting and focused story than most games.

The best aspect of the game is its highly customizable combat. There are Three skill Trees and twenty-two abilities per tree. The game also encourages mixing between skill trees by making mixed tree classes. There are nine different weapon types, three in each skill tree. Each weapon type is unique and different.

This game has a lot going for it. The story, combat, and world are all very good. This game didn’t do well however and the company who made it closed down. The problem wasn’t the game itself but who it was competing with and the fact that it didn’t add anything new.

for any fan of RPGs this game is a good choice but nothing you haven’t seen before. To those new to RPGs this game is a really good place to start as it does a lot of good things done by other RPGs all in one game.

Fable 2

This is fun game. Not terribly difficult but very fun. The story is interesting, the world is detailed and there are plenty of quests and side quests to keep you going. The best part of the game is that everything you do affects your character and the world.

Every time you do something or make a decision your character gets more evil/good, pure/corrupt, and even fatter or thinner depending on what you eat. A character that is good will be lighter with a tan and blond hair. Evil characters are darker with pale skin and black hair. Pure characters have halos, corrupt characters have horns.

Your choices also affect the world around you, and you can make the world better or worse depending on who you help and who you hurt.

There are three different attack styles, melee, ranged and magic. There is a wide verity of weapons to choose from, and some legendary weapons hidden throughout the game. Weapons can be customized with Augments.

There is a lot of exploration in fable, and always something to do. After you have done what you want to do and made the choices you want to make you can continue the main story for a time skip. Every time skip changes the world based on what you did and didn’t do.

This game is fun and definitely worth playing, but it does have two problems. Its really easy, incredibly easy you can’t even die. If you’re looking for a challenge then this is not the game for you. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you just want to play the game because its fun and you enjoy the story then its a good thing, but it may annoy some gamers. It’s also very linear, but it makes up for that with an interesting world for you to explore.

This a a great game to anyone who just wants to play the game and have fun doing it, there is plenty to do and see.

Tales of vesperia

Here’s a game most won’t have heard of, but is very awesome. Tale of Vesperia has some amazing art, a very good story and fun gameplay. It’s also very long, so you definitely get your moneys worth

It’s a JRPG so there is a slow start, but the story moves forward quickly and never gets boring. the different characters all have very different moves and you can always switch to a different character if you don’t like the protagonists fighting style.

the battles are real-time, fast paced and with a good-sized map. You fight with 3 other AI characters, but you can play multiplayer as well.

This game didn’t sell well out of japan, which is weird because it’s incredibly good and very highly rated. If you want to try something a little different, or just want a game to play with your friends then try Tales of Vesperia

Dragon Age: Origins

the first game in one of my favorite game series, Dragon Age: Origins

This game has so many choices and so much customisation that everyone can find something to like about it. With choices come replay value, and this is a game I have replayed over and over again.

Dragon Age follows the classic RPG style. This goes back to dungeons and dragons and old school pc games. While this game doesn’t add anything new, it doesn’t really need to.

The dwarfs are short and drunk, the elves like forests and are dicks to humans the humans are dicks the everyone, and the bad guys are black mutant things that might as well just be orcs.

the only race that is added is the qunari, however you cannot play as qunari in Origins.

Even if this is something we have seen a hundred times before its something we are all familiar with, and in dragon age it’s been done well.

The best thing about it is that you can play as almost whatever you want.

The combat is party based, and with several highly customisable characters there are a lot of ways this can go down. You can use mages with powerful spell combos and area of effect spells to take out a dozen enemies, stealth with rogues to take out the strongest enemies before the battle even begins, or just charge in with a warrior.

Origins has an expansion and tonnes of DLC, it is a game that has dozens of hours of gameplay.

This game is great for anyone, if you have never played an rpg before this is a good place to start. If you like RPGs then why haven’t you stoped reading yet? Close this blog and go find dragon age.

Mass effect

Now we have moved from what is undeniable awesome to something that is generally considered to be awesome.

Mass effect is a game about a guy name Shepard, or to anyone even vaguely familiar with the bible: Jesus Mcsacrificees-himself-at-the-end-to-save-the-world (or the galaxy, as this is a sci-fi).

Commander Shepard is out to save the galaxy from the evil giant metal space bugs known as the reapers, except in the first game where he just wants to kill a racist alien for making him look stupid in front of space politicians, and destroying a space village but no one seems to really care about that for some reason. I personally would think the invasion of a hostile alien race would be more of an issue, but apparently space politics.

Eventually (after two games) the space politicians decide that being killed by a massive space bug would be bad for their careers, so you do do their crap work for a while to convince them to do thier jobs.

the series has a very large, very detailed galaxy, very well build galaxy with many races and many worlds, each with its own story and culture.

mass effect is also popular because you can have sex with a variety of different aliens. proving that bobs is still the best way to sell anything to anyone between 13 and 20.

so, why is not undeniably awesome?

everyone hates the ending

seriously, you have no doubt heard about this before but after Three huge games you can’t just chuck a generic bull-shit adam and eve reference on the end and call it done. This annoyed a lot of long time fans and basicly ruined it for everyone.

despite the ending the games are awsome and everyone should play them.

BioShock

Continuing the theme of undeniably awesome, we have BioShock. BioShock is a first person shooter, however it also comes with the added bonus of being able to inject yourself with super powers.

these handy injections are called Plasmids, and they basically make everyone batshit crazy.

unfortunately for you, the game takes place in an underwater city. This leaves you with nowhere to go, trapped underwater, surrounded by batshit crazy people who have super powers, and really impressed with the scenery.

seriously, that’s an awesome view, and that Art Deco architecture is amazing. I would totally live there, I don’t even care about the rampaging super powered mutants or the ruthlessly sociopathic dictator. The city even comes with probably the awesomest security force ever conceived of by man. Giant, genetically engineered, partially robotic, amphibious, drill wielding, killing machines. The big daddy.

The game is not just visually incredible, it’s also smarter than you. Games give the player the illusion of choice. In reality your following a set story with a soulless npc there to tell out why you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing. BioShock knocks that idea on its ass with what is the single best story twists I have ever seen in a game.

The game gives the player a choice between selfishness, with a better chance to survive a horrific situation or altruism but potentially at the cost of your own survival. This comes from Objectivism, a philosophical idea developed by Ayn Rand, and her ideas are a big part of this game.

If [man] chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course. Reality confronts a man with a great many “must’s”, but all of them are conditional: the formula of realistic necessity is: “you must, if –” and the if stands for man’s choice: “if you want to achieve a certain goal”.

If you want a game that is incredibly fun, beautifully detailed, has an unquestionably brilliant plot, all while making you think and feel, Then CONGRATULATIONS!!! you found BioShock.

So would you kindly play BioShock?

Did it make you think and feel or did you just kill mutants for a few hours in a dark tunnel?

Zelda Ocarina of Time

the ocarina of time is the official awesomest game ever made, So it’s a good place to start. If my first post into Games is ocarina of time I really can’t screw it up, it’s also the first game I ever played. This week I pulled out my wii and soaked in the nostalgia.

The non-gamers, and a few gamers I am incredibly disappointed in probably didn’t even know this game existed. It came out in 1998 and instantly brought a whole new level of awesome into the world, it was given a perfect score from every major game reviewer. It is one of the few utterly flawless games ever made. One game reviewer called it a walking patent office for all the new features it brought to gaming.

I remember the first time I played it and thinking how realistic it was, now it as retro as it gets. At the time the game had an impressive level of depth and detail.

It’s an adventure / puzzle game. Like most adventure games is listed as action / adventure however the game play has some of the best puzzles ive ever seen in a game. Some parts, like the infamous Water Temple are more difficult that regular puzzle games like Portal.

The game has a lot of fucus  on puzzles but the action is good to. You have a huge amount of weapons like bombs, arrows and a giant hammer. The boss fights in this game are amazing, you fight huge monsters with your arsenal of weapons and using their attacks against them.

Whats not good about the game?

nothing, that’s why it’s the best game ever made. The only this you could complain about is that after you have played through the game multiple times and have memorised it completely you get bored playing it. The game is old and does not have any modern things like multiple endings so after multiple playthroughs it’s only the boss fights and nostalgia that keep you playing.

even the one slightly bad thing about this game implies that you played it so much you memorised every aspect of it.