Category: Xbox One

I always like to have at least one racing game in my library for any system I own, so when the Xbox One came out I picked up Forza Motorsport 5 by Turn 10 Games and published by Microsoft Studios.  It is a great showcase for the power of the Xbox One, and it is a blast to play.

Much like any racing sim, the game starts you off with normal every day cool cars like a Mazda RX8, but if you stick with it for a few hours then you will be racing around in Ferraris and McLarens.  Play a little longer and you can race in just about any car of your dreams on famous tracks all over the world.

The great thing about Forza 5 is how different every car feels when you drive it.  An AMC Javelin is powerful on straightaways, but you have to slow to a crawl around turns, but get in the driver’s seat of an Indy Car and it feels like you are trying to wrangle a crazed cat on hard wood floors while you are in your socks.  It is exhilarating.  It is a credit to Turn 10 that they were able change the handling on every car while having it still feel like the same game.

That being said if you don’t like the way a car handles you can always upgrade it so it feels a little different.  Give it some more power, change the gearing, or take a little air out of the tires.  You can tweak just about everything under the hood.  Not a gearhead, but love to play with paint?  You can spend hours custom detailing the looks of every car in Forza 5, and then share your paint jobs online for more in game credits.

The biggest change in this game from previous ones is the new Drivatar system.  This was introduced in earlier games to race for you in long tedious races, but now your Drivatar races for you all over the world in people’s single player games.  If he does well you earn a little extra cash, but the best part about the Drivatar system is that you never just race against the computer AI.  You are always racing against someone’s Drivatar.  This make the races way more unpredictable because you could be racing against someone like me who takes out everyone on the road, or against that guy who loves to take the perfect lines around the track.  If you race against me, I apologize in advance since my Drivatar will probably be trying to constantly force you off the road.

The graphics in the game are wonderful.  Every car and track is lovingly recreated and rendered in 1080P 60FPS perfection.  The game looks so good that you forget that you should even care about the visuals.  It just looks like you are driving around in real cars in mostly real places.  There are a couple of exceptions though, crowds still look odd, and they need better anti-aliasing because there a few jagged edges.

Since they seem to refuse to make a new Project Gotham racing game, Forza 5 is a good substitute.  It makes me a believer in the new generation of video games, and the fact they will get better then this is very exciting.  If you need a racing game for your Xbox One, I recommend Forza 5 whole heartedly.  If you see a driver named Shmee in one of your races, he will hit you.

This is mostly a hands on since I don’t play fighting games a lot.  I mostly keep them around so that when friends come over I have something to destroy them with.  Killer Instinct from Double Helix and Microsoft Games is perfect for that.  It is free for the game and one character, and you can pay for whichever other characters you want.   You can pay $20.00 for the base roster of characters, and then pay for new ones that come out if you want.  Alternatively you can pay $40.00 and get everything as it comes out for no added charge.

This is kind of a new pricing model for fighting games, and I am a little torn since I love to have everything, but on the other hand it is letting you pay for exactly what you want.  If you don’t like a character, you don’t have to have him.  If you only want a couple characters then they are all you have to pay for.  That being said $20.00 to $40.00 is a reasonable price range to pay for game these days.

That is enough on how much the game can cost, lets get down to how it plays.  Like I said before, I am no fighting game connoisseur, but I think it is a very fun game.  I like the  diversity in the characters, and I like the moves.  It feels very responsive.  The game looks great.  It is a 2D fighter rendered in full 3D, and there are tons of cool particle effects when you pull off that awesome special move.  I have looked around the web, and I am apparently not the only person that feels that way.

The only downer is that at the moment it is a little sparse on gameplay modes.  There is no story mode, or anything like that, but they said that they will be adding one once they have released all the characters.  It isn’t a big deal for me since I use fighting games as party games, so I have no need for a story mode.

Killer Instinct is a fun game that does exactly what I need it to do, but some might find it lacking.  I think the $20.00 deal is the way to go, unless you really need to have everything.  At the very least it is worth downloading the free character.

It seems that the evenly numbered Assassin’s Creed games are the ones to play.  Assassin’s Creed I was interesting, but very flawed.  Assassin’s Creed II fixed most of the those flaws, and it ended up being the game we wanted the first time around.  Assassin’s Creed III was fine, but it was just more of the same, so it was hard to care and was boring.  Now with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag they gave us the pirate game we have always wanted!

In the story you follow an eager young pirate Edward Kenway, who happens to be the father and grandfather of the protagonists in Assassin’s Creed III, and is not yet an Assassin.  Through a series of events he ends up joining their order and helping them to find yet another ancient artifact that can save the future.  In the present you work at a game company Abstergo Entertainment that is more then it seems.

Sadly the story is the probably the worst part of this game.  It is basically the same story from every Assassin’s Creed game with the exception that the main character is not really an Assassin.  He is just a jerky pirate that decided helping the Assassins would get him a little extra money.  Though that change is very welcome because at times he feels the same level of apathy about the Assassins that I do.

What makes this game awesome is the giant open Caribbean for you to explore and plunder.  You want to do battle with the English or Spanish and add their ships to your fleet?  By all means!  You want to hunt for whales or shoot helpless rare animals so you can make yourself cool gear?  You should do that!  You can even follow the main quest if you want, but the pirating is just fantastic.

Your pirate ship controls well, and there are a ton of upgrades to buy to make the Jackdaw the most formidable sea going vessel in the ocean. To upgrade it you will need to board ships and take their plunder, so you can earn money with their rum and sugar, or gather materials like wood, cloth, and metal.   Every time you take a ship, you can either use it to repair the Jackdaw, coerce the enemy’s crew to reduce your wanted level, or add it to your fleet.

If you add them to your fleet, there is a mini game where you send your boats on trading missions, and they bring back money and treasures.  It is a fantastic little time waster, and if your friends have the game they can help your fleet along its way.  This game also fuels your need to take bigger ships, so they can take more cargo across the world.

The on land parts of this game are pretty much the same as in all other Assassin’s Creed games, but they have continued to refine it, so it is a good change of pace from shooting enemy Man O’ Wars in Tortuga.  There are a ton of missions to do, and treasure to find, so you shouldn’t run out of stuff to do on dry land.

This game has a multiplayer mode, but I am not very good at it, and it never was that interesting to me.  If that is your thing though it does add even more value to an already massive and worthwhile game.  If they add a ship versus ship mode that would be awesome, but there isn’t one as of yet.

The graphics range from amazing to awful depending on what you are doing.  If your ship is in the middle of a storm with whales jumping around it looks stunning.  If your character is just randomly talking to another character it can look quite dated.  This is no doubt due to it being port of a previous generation game.

I really enjoy this game, and if they can ever create a story that I can care about then it looks like the future is bright for the Assassin’s Creed games.  For now however, you can find me pillaging the high seas because Assassin’s Creed IV got its hooks in me.

Battlefield 4 is a first person shooter developed by EA’s DICE studio.  If you have not heard about Battlefield by now, that means you have been living under a rock somewhere.  It is one of the most recognizable brands in the video game world.  It has been a rocky start for the game, but it is still fun, and worth a look.

Much like the last game, Battlefield 4 features a single-player campaign, and in it you take the role of Sgt. Daniel “Reck” Recker.  He is part of an elite squad called “Tombstone”.  You have been called in to stop a Chinese general from starting World War III, and to do that you pretty much have to shoot everyone in China.

The whole elite squad thing is kind of a misnomer since they can’t seem to shoot anything until you tell them too, and you can only tell them to shoot stuff that you are looking at and shooting anyway, but it is fun to be part of a group instead of all by yourself.  The campaign was really fun, and I was almost done with it when Battlefield 4 destroyed my save game file.  This apparently is a widespread problem, and an inexcusable one.  There have been game saves for as long as there have been video games, so to not be able to keep them from getting lost or corrupted is crazy.

All that being said the reason you will get Battlefield 4 is for the multiplayer, and that is still fantastic.  There is nothing more fun than flying a helicopter, having it almost blow up on you, so you parachute down to a skyscraper, and then having the skyscraper collapse.  You parachute down to the ground and grab a tank, and then lay waste to all that oppose you.  These sorts of moments make this game great, and they happen a lot.  Sadly EA is having trouble with its matchmaking, so getting in to games can be a little rough at the moment, but it is worth the trouble.

This game feels like it was rushed to the market to be in time for Christmas and the new console launches, and it is a shame.  If it were to have come out next month, I bet it would have been a smoother launch.  Still when you can play it, Battlefield 4 is one of the best things going right now, but I would wait another few weeks before picking it up, or just be like me and use the perseverance to build character.