SBM

I realize this review is a bit late, but this game really resonated with me as being a high quality classic, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for not just a good strategy game, but one of the best games ever. Tactics Ogre: LUCT is a remake of Tactics Ogre for the SNES, with more content and a much improved translation (seriously, the dialogue would not be out of place in a fantasy novel.) I can really like a game that has excellent gameplay, or a fantastic story. Few games, in my opinion, pull of both at once. I believe Tactics Ogre does, I'll break it down below. Gameplay: If you've played Final Fantasy Tactics you're in for (roughly) the same gameplay experience, but with some noticeable differences. It should be noted FF Tactics was the spiritual successor to Tactics Ogre. I think it's a damn shame the Tactics Ogre series has been laid to rest, but I digress. The game both on and off the battlefield requires lots of micromanagement, and in the later game you might spend more time than you'd like grinding levels or crafting powerful weapons. These facets might seem unappealing and to many they likely are, but you get out of the game what you put in. You could speed through the story with minimal grinding and still enjoy it, but the side quests and optional characters are just as engaging and worth your time. I will warn you some of the sidequests can be very long, at least one of the optional dungeons has over 100 levels contained within. I found the game challenging but fair, the hardest levels in the game are the ones where you must keep a friendly NPC alive, as they prone to suicidal charges into the enemy's frontlines. The story: I could gush about how much I loved the story but I'll try to keep the fanboyism down. The story is mature, dark and surprisingly real. I won't include a synopsis as you could find one elsewhere and I don't want to risk any spoilers. Just be prepared, friends may die, they may betray you, they may leave you because they disagree with your decisions. The men you fight may be more honorable than the ones you serve, and as the main character comes to realize, "To lead is to stand alone." Additionally, the characters are excellent and have three dimensional personalities. The decisions you make have REAL consequences, and they will dictate who lives and dies. There are also multiple endings, and I will admit my ending on my first play through was not ideal, but it was pretty cool to see such a dark ending in a JRPG. Will all the content, the excellent story and just general grade A quality, this is an easy game to recommend. I have inducted Tactics Ogre into my top 5 games of all time, and while Final Fantasy Tactics is very good I would venture to say TO is superior. I bought it off of PSN and play it on my Vita, do yourself a favor and check it out!

Anyone waiting for the next great MMO will likely be disappointed. I had high hopes for ESO, I quite liked Skyrim and Morrowind before it, and the idea of a multiplayer installment was very appealing. However ESO doesn't break free of the MMO mold at all, in a lot of ways it's a step backwards. WoW is still better, heck The Old Republic is better. This game will not survive with a subscription fee, I highly doubt I'll even use my free month of play time. I'll try and breakdown what's wrong with it, along with what they did right. The bad: Gameplay - Levelling solo was very boring for me, a friend or two may have helped, but I digress. It was admirable of the devs to try and break away from the kill X enemies or collect X of Y, but the quests still end up boring and samey. Combat, which has never been great in Elder Scrolls, is actually a step back from Skyrim. The combat feels floaty and requires you to aim in the general direction of an enemy when attacking. For an MMO with lots of enemies and chaos, this is just annoying. Levelling feels way too slow, and there's no good reason to even want to get to the end game. Dungeons are just a harder variation of the same boring crap you'd be doing solo. The Cyrodill PvP could be fun, but it usually ends up as one faction dominating the other two. Some essential features are also missing or just plain done wrong. There is no auction house, nor is there even a dedicated trade chat. You are stuck either trying to peddle your goods in the main chat channel, or to your guildmates. Speaking of which, you can join 5 guilds. Who wants 5 different guild chats spamming their screen at once? One guild has been standard for MMOs and for good reason. If WoW has too many features then ESO has far too few. Another note: The animations and lip syncing are fairly awful, of all the things to carry over from Elder Scrolls, why bring the terrible animations? The game economy - They took an interesting route with crafting, but it seems unbalanced. Also resources are very scarce, making levelling your crafting skill slow and expensive. Certain things like mounts cost far too much, it really seems like Zenimax wants you to shell out real cash for the imperial edition horse or the palomino. It's just too hard to earn enough money, I wouldn't be surprised to see gold available in the cash shop soon. The not terrible: Graphics - Pretty decent, not amazing, but about what you'd expect for a modern MMO. Sound - Probably my favorite thing about this game is the soundtrack. There are a lot of familiar tunes along with some new ones, I enjoyed the music. Voice acting was a mixed bag, certain voices were way overused, remember that guy who voiced half the Nords in Skyrim? He's back voicing half the Nords in this game. In Conclusion: This game is not horrible, clearly a lot of work did go into designing the game, but it went in the wrong direction. A lot of the Elder Scrolls features they stuck in this game were the wrong ones. Of the paid MMOs, this is the weakest by far. Even the free to plays like SWTOR and Neverwinter are better in my opinion. If you are like me and looking for a fun new MMO, you won't find it here. Save your money.

It's been a while since I really enjoyed a FPS, the genre has gotten very stale for me. Call of Duty traps you inside tiny boxes of varying size where death comes at the hands of randomly thrown frag grenades. Battlefield sticks you in a giant box where you run around the entire match looking for some action, then get sniped or blown up by a tank. Halo: CE was pretty great, but the sequels have about beaten the concept to death. Enter Titanfall, I love this damn game. I may get bored of it one day, but the base mechanics are brilliant. The shooting is great, the parkour style movement and freedom beats that of any other shooter I've played. Need I even mention the titans? They are great too. Going from a mobile pilot on foot to a rampaging titan is a seamless transition, it's a ton of fun to play either way. The weapons and titans are well balanced, despite what some of my friends think I didn't find any particular weapon or ability to be "over powered". Titanfall has a few issues but most of them will be easily remedied by DLC. The campaign is underwhelming, the only real reason to do it is to unlock the alternate titan chassis. It's just a series of Team Deathmatch and Hardpoint matches with some NPC chatter and a few gee whiz moments thrown in. The game modes are also a bit bare bones, you'll soon have played every game type and every map several times over. Additionally there is no private match capability, the only way to play with your friends in on the same team, but I've had plenty of fun playing this way. The base game is just so good my complaints are non-issues by comparison. This is a great FPS, I look forward to future DLC.

I'll try and keep this brief. If you liked Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, you'll like Dark Souls II. It's more refined and less opaque than it's immediate predecessor. I will say that the graphics are nearly identical to DS, and the visuals, (especially pertaining to character models) are outdated. However, this doesn't really bother me, and I doubt the fanbase cares about the quality of the graphics. On to the good improvements: The covenant system is less confusing, stats are better explained, and the framerate issues from DS (looking at you, Blighttown) are gone. They have added several tools to help you tailor the level of difficulty to your personal preference. Don't get me wrong, the game is hard no matter what, but you can "tweak" the difficulty. If it's not hard enough already (for you masochists) there is a covenant you can join that significantly ups the challenge, there are also consumable items that increase the difficulty of your present area, as well as the returning new game+ feature. If you are having trouble you can summon aid from other players, and in some areas there are optional ways to ease your suffering. I won't get into too much detail, but these will be more apparent when playing for yourself. If you are worried about invasions from other players, I wouldn't be too concerned. I've only been invaded once so far, and it was in the Belltower area, which is something of a dedicated pvp area (much like the forest area in DS). I also have enjoyed the story more this time around (it's still as vague and mysterious as ever though) it just adds a bit more of a personal edge. In previous games you were just a "chosen undead", this time you are still afflicted by the curse of hollowing, but the price is more apparent in the plights of yourself and those sane undead you encounter on your journey. I can't say much more without venturing into spoiler territory, but if you want a challenge and enjoy the haunting atmosphere, get this game!