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Pokémon Go Is The Pokémon Game We Have Been Waiting For!

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Nintendo’s first smartphone game is a raging success, and they shouldn’t be that surprised.  Twenty years ago Nintendo launched a video game, card game, and cartoon show about roaming around and capturing Pokémon, and now all those kids that played and watched Pokémon when it came out have grown up and got smart phones.  Thanks to those phones they now get to actually roam around and capture Pokémon.  It is twenty years of dreams coming true in a small way.  Kids and adults hitting the streets in small packs trying to fill out their PokéDex’s.

While there isn’t a lot of game in Pokémon Go, you pretty much just swipe, there is a feeling of adventure and accomplishment wandering around to new places and adding the little guys to your collection.  Not to mention the sense of community that Pokémon Go is building.  You can just talk to random people in the grocery store and ask them if there are any good ‘Mons around, and they will know what you are talking about and no doubt tell you where they got their last critter.

While Pokémon Go is shallow gameplay-wise compared to all the new Pokémon video games, this is the game people have been waiting for twenty years.  It is the fulfilment of a concept Nintendo has created and maintained for decades.  We all get to be Ash hunting through the forest looking for just one more Pokémon to add to our collection.  Now if only Nintendo would release the game on Windows 10 Mobile so I could stop stealing my wife’s phone I would be truly happy.

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Red Dead Redemption Is Rockstar’s Greatest Game!

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The Grand Theft Auto games get all the love and the attention, I mean Grand Theft Auto V is one of the highest selling games of all time, but Red Dead Redemption is far and away Rockstar’s best game (though the case could be made for Table Tennis).  It is almost perfect.  Almost, it has Grand Theft Auto IV’s terrible shooting mechanics and occasionally frustrating camera angles, but it is the only game in Rockstar’s library that manages to take the open world concept and make the world feel real and lived in with a story that pulls you in and never lets go.

It is a story that reminds us that things like racism, gun violence and immigration concerns are nothing new.  In fact they have been around so long you could sadly almost say that they are part of American culture.  It also is a personal story about a man that is trying to go straight for his family and leave his checkered passed behind.  Not ground breaking, but well told in a way that no other Rockstar game has yet to match.

The multiplayer is equally entertaining.  It just lets you and your friends run around in the Wild West together and make up your own fun.  I used to love to join up with a buddy and take over a town and then hold it off from the cops for as long as possible, and then run away when things got too hot and then try and hold up somewhere else.  It was like an open world Horde Mode, and it was fantastic.

Now that Red Dead Redemption is compatible with the Xbox One I started to play it again and it just feels good to ride around, take in the sights, save random people, play a round of Black Jack, and whatever else I feel like.  It is like a warm video game hug.  It is criminal they haven’t released a follow up yet, but as good as Red Dead Redemption is, I can see why they want to take their time and get the next one right.  Today is the last day to get Red Dead Redemption on sale for cheap on the Xbox Store with a bunch of free DLC.  You should do yourself a favor and pick it up.

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No Man’s Sky Is Finally Done, But Will It Be Fun?

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After years of development the largest game ever made is complete.  The question is will No Man’s Sky be fun?  There has been so much hype surrounding this game that it has been almost inescapable, but all the hype has been pretty much saying it will be good because of how massive it is.  I don’t care about how big it is, I just want a fun space sim to replace Freelancer (I have been waiting a long time).

My fear with this game is that it will be so big that even if I do end up playing on the same server as my friends, will I even ever see them?  The answer seems to be, “Unlikely”.  So we have to hope that flying around and exploring is fun enough without ever talking to or seeing another living soul.  There are rumors that the game’s focus is about finding our way back home to the center of the galaxy, so maybe once you get home the game’s multiplayer opens up because we are all in a much more confined area.  We will see I guess.

Between Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky and Star Citizen my hope is that I can stop pining for a game that was and start playing a game that is.  I have been let down in the past with space sims, and it is making me skeptical of all the space sims that are coming out.  That being said, I really want No Man’s Sky to be good, and we only have about thirty more days to find out if it lives up to the hype or not.

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Pneuma: Breath Of Life Is An Enjoyable Stroll

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Thanks to Xbox’s Games with Gold promotion I end up with a lot of games that I never wanted and will probably never play, but every now and then it is fun to start one up and see what it is all about.  That was the case with Pneuma: Breath of Life.  It is a first person puzzle game that all Xbox Live Gold members got for free last November, but I just now decided to give it a try.  It was fine, and it was a relaxing way to spend just under four hours, but not something I would enthusiastically tell people to spend their money on.

Pneuma starts out with you taking control of a being that has just now come in to existence, and since everything seems to react and be focused around him, he decides that he must be a god.  As the puzzles get harder and more devious he starts to question his deity.  I will not spoil his somewhat interesting conclusion.  Though the game seems to think the pay off is more thought provoking than it is.

First person puzzle games are all about two things: good graphics or art, and clever puzzles.  Pneuma does okay on both fronts.  The game’s Greek temple aesthetic works well for a would be deity, but there is nothing groundbreakingly pretty to look at.  As for the puzzles, they start off really easy as you learn the game’s systems, but just when they start to get difficult, the game ends.  I guess there are three hidden puzzles that I didn’t do, so I may go back and give them a shot, but I doubt it.  The game just needed a couple extra chapters to have players truly test their metal.  Puzzle games shouldn’t make players have to go find a challenge.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with Pneuma: Breath of Life, and it gave me 850 Gamer Score for very little effort, but I would have enjoyed it less had I paid money for it.  This game is worth a couple of dollars at most, so if it is on sale for $5 or less and you love puzzle games, I would say it is worth a try.  Though if you really are a puzzle gamer I don’t think Pneuma will present much of a challenge, more of a breezy walk in the park.  Much like walks in the park you shouldn’t have to play a lot for it.