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The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim Special Edition plays and feels mostly the same as the original but what has been enhanced greatly is the scenery and the way some things behave in the wild like how water now moves naturally along the shores. Vistas, mountains, trees, snow, roads and more will all strike your eyes as shockingly refreshed and pretty to look at – especially if the first time you saw this game was on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 (as opposed to PC). The migration to current generation consoles wasn’t 100% upgraded as character models only got slight enhancements making them look a bit ‘muddy’ and out of place especially in contrast to the improved landscapes. For those who may be new to the Skyrim experience – know that this video game yields many different outcomes and ways to play as an RPG adventure. Like a well-crafted video game, Skyrim allows you to focus on being a fighter or use stealth, you can spend time crafting weapons or find loot in dungeons and these are things other video games in the past have done but The Elder Scrolls V manages to blend the overall experience into a complete package. If you skipped on playing The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim the first time around then this is the perfect time to give the video game another chance.

Sword Art Online Hollow Realization is an action Japanese Role Playing Game from Bandai Namco. The Sword Art Online games are quickly becoming serialized and almost annual like the Tales of series or Call of Duty. Before playing Hollow Realization I may have considered this a bad thing, but my mind has been changed. The game is based in the Sword Art Online universe – a popular anime and manga – created by Reki Kawahara. What makes Hollow Realization special is how Kawahara created an original story for the game instead of the game relying on previously-released storylines. What impressed me the most with Hollow Realization is the amount of improvements that have been made from the previous iterations. The graphics are improved, especially in town and in the character design. It’s still a little muddy when the action is hot and heavy, but compared to Lost Song or Hollow Fragment, it’s a vast improvement. The combat has also been overhauled. They have gone from a heavy dose of button mashing to a style that resembles an actual MMO, which is great because the premise of SAO is that the characters are playing an MMO. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but I can appreciate the effort to make it better. Where Hollow Realization comes up short is how everything feels so overwhelming. You can strike up relationships with everyone – literally everyone in the “game.” So, I stop to talk to people and fulfill collections for them and now I’m trying to maintain dozens of relationships outside of the main group of characters, which numbers close to ten itself. Speaking of fulfilling side quests, I’m the type of person that picks up all side quests. At any given time, I was juggling 50 side quests/collections on top of the main story quest. Then there are Event Fragments and smaller fight events that also distract from the main experience. It just becomes too much. Overall, Sword Art Online Hollow Realization is for the hardcore Japanese Role Playing Game player or fan of the SAO universe. This is especially true for the fans of the series. You really don’t want to miss out on this storyline, as I would consider this now a part of the canon. That said, this is not for the new or casual player. The unfamiliar will get lost in the mammoth systems and non-linear design.

Dishonored 2 (2016) from Arkane Studios and Bethesda Softworks is the sequel to Dishonored (2012) and features a variety of ways to play through missions and achieve goals. Dishonored 2, like the first game, specializes in stealth and the mastery of using your special abilities to transverse the lay of the land and dispose of opponents. As a gamer you can decide on if you’ll take the ‘fight first ask questions later’ approach or ‘avoid conflict and sneak around’ method – each giving you a different challenge to the way the game unfolds. The original Dishonored was filled with intrigue and wonders to explore and Dishonored 2 continues on that same road. In many ways Dishonored 2 feels more like a continuation of the first game and not so much a sequel as the controls and visuals look and feel the same. This time around you can play as either Corvo (hero from the first game) or Emily Kaldwin – who was a child in the first game and is now all grown up complete with her own unique abilities. The skill tree has been modified to allow gamers to be more precise on how they want to level up their abilities and for those who want a real challenge it is possible to play the entire game without powers giving you both bragging rights and a special Trophy/Achievement. The original Dishonored game was quite an achievement as it was fun exploring levels and taking out bad guys with either sword, magic or by sneaking up behind them with a choke hold. Dishonored 2 doesn’t add much new as for the visuals or gameplay but there are some new elements to combat like being able to do a charged strike attack which will render enemies helpless long enough for you to put them to sleep and also Emily’s new abilities. Ultimately we would have liked to have seen an improvement to the dialogue scenes and loading times decreased as part of the upgrades but that doesn’t deter Dishonored 2 from being one of the best games released in 2016.