E3 2014 Impressions

Well, E3 2014 is in the books. What was the overall impression from the show?: Meh. It's not that it was a bad E3, there just wasn't anything Earth-shattering to come out of it.

Usually you expect a ton of news and at least one mind-blowing revelation to come out of the expo, and that just didn't happen this year for a couple of reasons. First of all, it seemed like a lot of companies decided to try and get out ahead of the show proper and they made their biggest announcements a week or two before the show started. The reason for this is obvious, typically there is so much news coming down the pipe that it's easy for a lot of things to get lost in the shuffle, and then no one hears about them. Secondly, the biggest complaint/running joke that arose from this year's convention was about how it seemed like the vast majority of games being shown aren't due until at least 2015, if not beyond that.

This chart disproves that sentiment, but that doesn't change how the show felt.

Either way, the show's over. And that means it's time that I give you my impressions of it. Since the press conferences themselves weren't that interesting, I'm just going to share my thoughts on a few topics and then I'll talk about some of the games that caught my eye, and I will accompany them with their respective trailers. So, without further ado:

Biggest Disappointment

I suppose I should just get this one out of the way up front, there was no Fallout 4 announcement. Not only was this disappointing for me as a fan who is dying to play a new Fallout game, but I honestly feel like Bethesda really dropped the ball on this one. Because there really wasn't anything that stole the show this year, Fallout 4 could have been it. Hell, it would have been it. There is so much anticipation for this game that all they would've had to do was show a teaser trailer at one of the press conferences and then do a short gameplay demo during the show. They wouldn't even have had to make it public; just allow some media guys to play it or watch someone play it so they could write up a preview or two and, BAM, game of show. Oh well, I guess Wasteland 2 will just have to tide me over for now, but that a subject for another blog.

Coolest Trailer/Most Interesting Games

In no particular order, here are some of the things I feel like you should see that came out of the show. Some of these game I doubt I'd ever be interested in playing, they just had some very creative trailers, and the rest are games that I can't wait to get my hands on!

Inside

The next game from Playdead, the creators of the critically acclaimed Limbo, Inside looks just as dark and brooding as the game that put them on the map. Watching the trailer you definitely get the sense that these games came from the same minds, but there's enough about Inside's visual style alone to set it apart.

Limbo had a monochromatic color scheme and the game was all silhouettes. Inside makes use of color, but it's all very desaturated, lending it a very ominous tone, similar to what worked so well for Limbo. It also seems to emphasize depth in a way that Limbo didn't. The way that a number of shots in the above trailer use negative space to create a sense of scale in the environment is truly striking.

Dead Island 2

I don't have any particular interest in playing the Dead Island games; the first one seemed like it had some cool ideas, but was very messily put together. However, this was, without a doubt, one of the funnest trailers to come out of the show. I legitimately found myself smiling and chuckling over how ridiculous this trailer is. If the final game can hit this tone and tighten up the gameplay and hammer out the glitches, than Dead Island 2 may be worth a look once it's released.

I can only imagine that the name on the gilded dog tag is "Douche"

Tom Clancy's The Division

The Division is a third-person shooter set in a post-apocalyptic New York City following a mysterious viral outbreak that wiped out most of the city's population. Not the most original concept to be sure, and the game itself may wind up being another run-of-the-mill cover shooter, but the trailer that Ubisoft put together for this year's show was certainly one of the most artfully done. It's difficult to describe, but it's message is conveyed clearly; give it a watch and just enjoy the show.

Even if the game ends up being forgettable, at least it has one of the coolest in-game maps I've seen.

Alien: Isolation

I love the Alien movies! They are some of my favorite films of all time. That being said, I've never been a big fan of any games based on them. Most of them have been first-person shooters, and even the decent ones just didn't seem interesting to me. And, following the tragically bad Aliens: Colonial Marines, this game needs to be good in order to save face for the property as a whole. 

At the very least the team at Creative Assembly is trying something different. Rather than make another rote, mindless shooter starring space marines, Alien: Isolation is trying to play up the horror and slasher flick tone that the Original Alien film nailed so well. You won't be mowing down hordes of Xenomorphs with plasma rifles; there's only one in the whole game, and you stand no chance of fighting it. Instead you must hide and use a combination of wits and patients to throw the predatory beast off of your trail.

If the guys and gals at CA can pull this off without the game devolving into frustrating trial-and-error gameplay, we may have one of the best Alien games headed our way this October.

I'd say it's time to shit. I mean hide! Time to hide.

The new Mass Effect game

Ok, I need to talk about this one simply because I'm such a huge fan of the series. At E3 Bioware and EA put out the above video that they called a teaser trailer, but it was really more of developer diary. It's mostly a video of some of the guys at Bioware talking about their ideas for the next Mass Effect. They do show a few images, but they made sure to label them as "conceptual prototypes", meaning that a lot of what they showed may change significantly in the final version, or it may not be in there at all.

I wasn't really surprised by this, I know the next ME is a ways off. What did surprise me, however, is the fact there was no announcement of some sort of "Mass Effect Trilogy: Ultimate Edition" that'll be coming to the new consoles and PC with all of the DLC included and updated graphics. It seems like a foregone conclusion that they would make that, and I am just surprised that they didn't announce it; especially when you consider how bare-bones EA's press conference lineup was.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Speaking of Bioware, Dragon Age: Inquisition looks fantastic! This is my most anticipated game of the year and, after finally getting to see a real gameplay demonstration, I have to say that the game seems to be coming together nicely. You can check out some of the gameplay below:

Hopefully DA:I will live up to expectations and be the Dragon Age game that fans of the series want it to be. Speaking for myself, October 7th can't come soon enough.

Well that's not a good sign...

Mortal Kombat X

The action in this trailer is nothing short of bad ass! Personally I could do without the dumb rap song that in no way, shape, or form fits the game but hey, marketing. Either way, I am pumped to see what NetherRelam Studios has in store for the next iteration of this legendary fighting game franchise. And, thankfully, we got to see some real gameplay of it at the show, check it out below:

 I think this would hurt so bad, your brain wouldn't even let you feel it.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

After playing last year's excellent reboot of the classic Tomb Raider franchise, I've been very curious to see what Crystal Dynamics has planned for the indomitable Lara Croft next. Well, this year's E3 marked the announcement of the upcoming sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider. A lot of people have been pooh-poohing the name, but whatever; if the game can meet the high bar set by the original, than they could call it Rise of the Fart Raider for all I care.

There wasn't any gameplay shown, but I was still excited to hear the official word that the game is in development.

Far Cry 4

Ok, as long as I'm making a list that includes amazing trailer, this one had to make the cut. The Far Cry games have really hit their stride over the last couple of games, with Far Cry 3 receiving much critical and fan acclaim for it's open world and engaging gameplay. FC3 also introduced a captivating villain in Vaas. Unfortunately, most people agree that his potential was squandered early in the game.

Hopefully that won't be the case this time around with FC4's new villain, Pagan Min. The above trailer makes for one hell of an introduction to this psychopath and leaves you curious about not only the player's relationship with him, but also how far he will go and what his motives are. If the game can hold to it's current release date, we'll be discovering the answers to these question this November.

Honorable Mention

Just to wrap this up before I find myself talking about every trailer that debuted at the show, I should go ahead and list a few final trailers that caught my attention, click on the names to see their videos:

The Order: 1886 (Stylish 3rd-person shooter with an interesting setting.)

White Night (Creepy-looking horror game with striking visual style.)

Mario Maker (Looks super cool. if Nintendo can flesh it out and give creators the tools they'd want, it'll be spectacular.)

Destiny (The latest from Bungie, the team responsible for the Halo franchise. Looks really great so far, hopefully it can live up to its creator's legacy.)

Final Thoughts

So, maybe E3 2014 wasn't a mind-blowing event. We still got to see some fantastic looking games coming from talented people, ranging from small indie dev teams to massive AAA-title making factories.

If anything, this year's show proves that the video game industry is alive and well and will be pumping out cool stuff for years to come, and I couldn't be happier to be along for the ride.

E3 2014 Preview

The Electronic 3rd is nearly upon us!

E3, the biggest video game convention of the year, is only a few short weeks away. That means that it's high time I start talking about my expectations for what we may see this year. 

2013 felt like a bit of an off year for E3; the show was mostly focused on Sony and Microsoft hammering out the final details for their consoles before launch. Which was famously followed by a lot of backtracking on Microsoft's part due to the backlash they received over a number of their proposed policies regarding the Xbox One. 

Meanwhile the games themselves seemed to take a backseat. It just felt like the really cool stuff that's going to justify the existence of this new generation of hardware simply wasn't ready to show yet. Granted, that is pretty typical of a launch year E3, but it's also the reason why this year feels so exciting. Now that the new consoles are out of their "launch window" we should start to see the real next-gen games coming to the forefront. The one that aren't simply uprezzed versions of 360 and PS3 games. There will obviously still be some overlap, but it definitely appears that the newer machines are the lead platforms for these games, and they're being ported down for the old consoles, instead of the other way around. 

And, with that, I will run down a brief list of the games I'm most interested in seeing. Some of these have already been confirmed to be at E3 and some haven't, so please bear that in mind.

Fallout 4

Will it happen? God I hope so. And I am pretty confident that we will see the next Fallout at this year's show. The timing feels right and there's simply too much evidence that it's coming for the game to be a no-show again... right?

Let's run through all of the evidence that points to a new Fallout being announced this year:

1. Timing: its been 3 years since Skyrim was released, and about a year and a half since Bethesda finished the final piece of DLC for the game, Dragonborn. There was a post on Bethesda's official blog in April 2013 talking about how they were finished making new content for Skyrim and that this will free up the team to work on their "next major project". The Elder Scrolls Online just released earlier this year, so it would be silly of them to step on their own toes by even talking about the next proper Elder Scrolls release so soon. Fallout is the other big franchise that Bethesda is known to develop in-house and, assuming that it's being built on a modified version of the Skyrim engine, 3-4 years seems like the right amount of time it would take to make this game.
2. Sightings: Back in mid 2012 there were several stories claiming that Bethesda employees had been spotted scouting locations in and around the Boston area, leading to speculation that this would be the setting for the next Fallout game. It also helps that Boston makes a lot of sense as a place to set a Fallout game. The Commonwealth, which was mentioned several times in Fallout 3, is the in-lore name for the state of Massachusetts in the post-apocalypse. The fact that FO3 was developed by Bethesda makes these off-handed mentions feel like hints to the future of the franchise.
3. Leaks: Then, just a few months back in December, Kotaku ran a story detailing a script that had been leaked from a casting call. Although this script never mentions the word Fallout, it does refer to a number of places in the Fallout universe and even includes the infamous tag line: "War. War never changes."

Combine this evidence with a rabid fanbase that has been absolutely chomping at the bit for a new entry in the series, and it seems that Fallout 4 is a shoe-in for this year's E3.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Okay, let me start this one off by saying something controversial: I liked Dragon Age 2. Now, before you raise your pitchforks and light your torches, give me a moment to contextualize that. I liked DA2, I didn't love it. The game definitely had it's flaws, mainly stemming from the fact that it seemed rushed out the door entirely too quickly. However, there were a lot of things that I enjoyed about that game. Things that I'd like to see return for the next game in the franchise, Dragon Age: Inquisition.

First of all, I loved the combat in DA2; some would argue that it was dumbed down from Dragon Age: Origins, but I honestly felt like it was simply more streamlined and focused; that it made the combat feel better overall. And I will be a sad boy if the Force Magic specialization doesn't return; fewer things are more fun than using gravity itself to smash your foes around the battlefield.

Secondly, I really enjoyed having the snarky, smart-ass dialog choices as your third option within the dialog trees. Usually in games like this, including Bioware's own Mass Effect franchise, you have a choice between "good guy" and "bad guy" dialog with at third "neutral" option thrown in as well. The problem with that, is why would anyone choose the boring-ass neutral response? There's never any real reason to. But in Dragon Age 2 the third option was actually valid and fun to use. These options would have your character respond with a joke, or some sort of sarcastic comment, and it lent an entirely different tilt to his/her personality. This felt like a really unique thing that no one had pulled off properly before and it would be a shame if Dragon Age: Inquisition leaves it on the cutting room floor.

Here's to hoping.

All that being said, what they've shown of DA:I looks amazing. And the way that the developers speak about the game and how they're approaching it makes me think that this team is in the proper mindset to deliver something truly spectacular. The team has said that they've taken a lot of inspiration from Skyrim, and that this game will be quite massive in scope. Considering the amount of time that they're taking to make it, almost two years already and the game isn't due until 2015, I'd say that Bioware and EA seem to be giving this game it's due attention, and I can hardly wait to see it in action at E3.

New Mass Effect

If you know me or follow my blog, than you know that I love Mass Effect. It is my favorite video game franchise of all time; it speaks to me. Mass Effect embodies all of my favorite things about gaming and sci-fi: spaceships, futuristic guns, choices with consequences, an intense story, and sexy alien ladies.

"How you doin'?'

So I have to at least mention the possibility of a trailer for the next entry in the series. I doubt that it'll be much more than a teaser trailer, but maybe they will have at least put an official title on the game. That is assuming that there's anything ready to show at all.

(Not official screenshot, fan art by Baolong Zhang.)

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I never played the original, but The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was the first big game I bought after getting my first real gaming PC, the one I still use today. It's one of the reasons that I've done most of my gaming on the PC since then. Witcher 2 absolutely blew me away; the world was so twisted and dark compared to most games and movies that use the medieval fantasy setting.

That's why I'm excited to see what's next for this series. They've release a few trailers, and it looks stunning. If the team can hit the same level of quality and polish as the previous game, then The Witcher 3 will be a game for the ages. They're saying that this will be the final game in The Witcher series, and it certain looks like CD Projekt Red is aiming to do it justice.

Something tells me that thing ain't friendly.

Destiny

Destiny is the next game from Bungie and, while I never played much of their Halo games, something about their latest venture has caught my attention. It could be the art style reminding me of Mass Effect, or maybe I'm just hungry for this type of game. Whatever it may be, Destiny looks pretty spectacular and I'm excited to see more of it at the show.

Everything Else!

When it comes to E3, more often than not, the most exciting things to come out of the show are things that you didn't see coming at all. I'm excited to see what new games get announced and what new features are going to be coming to the PS4 and Xbox One. Will Microsoft announce a price drop in order to increase their install base and try to catch up to Sony? Will Nintendo or another company steal the show from the two heavyweights with something truly mind-blowing? Only time will tell and, thankfully, we don't have long to wait.

When the Saints Go Marching In

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

I recently finished Saint's Row 4, and holy crap was it an amazing experience. In my last blog I expressed concern that SR4's sales might suffer with it being released so close to Grand Theft Auto 5 since they're similar games and some people my feel the need to choose one over the other. Well I'm happy to report that, after playing it, those fears seem unfounded. Saint's Row 4 is so far removed from what the GTA series is that it's hardly worth the comparison. SR4 is more in line with games like Crackdown or Infamous; its a super hero game at heart.

The new Saint's Row still has many of the gameplay mechanics you associate with GTA and earlier entries in the series: the ability to jack cars and planes, etc. However, within the first hour or so, you'll find that you will almost never have to set foot in a vehicle except for when the game's story requires it.

The reason is, early on in the game, your character earns the ability to run faster than any car in existence and jump incredibly high into the air. And, soon after, you'll be able to run up the side of any building, leap off at the top and glide across the city like some foul-mouthed flying squirrel.

Weeee!

The breezy, fluent traversal controls are easily one of the funnest parts of the game. It's simply a blast to get around the city, and the game provides more than enough collectibles to give you an excuse to just criss-cross the city of Steelport like a drunken Superman. Scattered all over the place there are more than 1200 "clusters" that function as a secondary currency that you'll use to upgrade your various super powers. There are several other types of collectibles as well, including audio logs and statues begging to be destroyed.

Enter the Simulatrix

Welcome to Virtual Steelport! Brought to you by the Zin Empire.

If you haven't been following SR4 up to its release you're probably wondering why you have super powers to begin with. The Saint's Row franchise, while becoming increasingly ridiculous over the years, has always been somewhat grounded in reality. So where do these powers come in to play? To explain that we'll have to dig into the story a bit. So, if you're planning to enter SR4 spoiler-free, you should probably stop reading here. Just know that the game is amazing and you should absolutely play it if what you've seen or read has interested you at all. However, be sure to play it on PC if that's an option for you; I hear the console versions suffer from some serious performance issues.

When the game opens, the leader of the Saints(your character) is in the middle of foiling a plot to nuke the United States. Despite your best efforts the warhead launches and you're tasked with climbing the missile and tearing out its navigation systems as it builds altitude. You ultimately succeed and dive off of the missile just in the nick of time. This event propels you and the Saint's from international celebrities to patriotic heroes. And, being the ambitious bastard you are, you parlay the public adoration into a run for the Presidency. And you win.

Choices...choices...

Things aren't all rosy for your administration, however. You're facing resistance from other political groups and all the major decisions being left to you have begun to take their toll. And, just when it looks like the leader of the free world is considering hanging it up for good, fucking aliens bust into the White House and abduct you and your cabinet members(your friends and fellow Saints.)

You wind up in a crazy virtual world based on Steelport from Saint's Row: The Third, But this place is designed to keep you in line and break you. To make a long story short, a couple of your homies help you break out of this digital nightmare and steal an alien ship to call your own.

Complete with futuristic shitter!

However, a number of your friends are still trapped inside this network of cyber prisons, known as The Simulation. And the only way to get them out is to plug yourself back in, track down where they're being held, and force them to snap out of the illusion. You'll also need to weaken the Simulation overall in an attempt to bring the whole thing down. But these are just the steps you must take to get your shot at Emperor Zinyak, architect of The Simulation.

It's basically a mix of The Matrix films and Mass Effect games, with tons of references to other games and movies thrown in for good measure. You'll see nods to everything from Terminator and Men in Black to Streets of Rage and Combat, and everything in between.

Hmm, I know this reminds me of something...

SR4's story is very well written, but it's ultimately just an excuse to give you ridiculous powers and the designers a chance to throw you into increasingly ludicrous scenarios that couldn't exist in a more realistic world.This lends the game's story missions a wide variety of settings and mechanics for you to play around with. And, since you're entering simulations that are based on your trapped homie's worst nightmares, it provides insight into these character's backstories, giving you a better sense of who they are. It makes you care about them, which makes you want to help them out.

After rescuing one of the Saints, you can speak to them aboard your ship or call them into The Simulation to aid you in combat. More importantly however, you gain access to a loyalty mission involving them. These missions are all unique to that specific character and are the source of some of the best and funniest moments in the entire game, especially if you've played the earlier Saint's Rows. Your reward for completing the mission? That homie becomes super powered within The Simulation and dons an incredible hero outfit, all of which are perfectly fitting for that person.

One of my only complaints with the game is that I wish there were more interactions with your homies. Aboard the ship you have two options with each of the Saint's, "talk" or "romance". The "talk" option just has them throw out a few lines related to what's going on, and the "romance" options leads to an immediate, and often awkward, romance scene which are consistently funny because of how abrupt they are. When you think about it though, that's hardly even a complaint; I like what they did with the characters so much that I just want there to be more of it.

Cue the mood lighting.

Let the Playa Play

Saint's Row 4 is clearly built on the same engine as SR:TT and it reuses a lot of assets from that game. However, almost the entire world has been re-skinned to fit the new motif which makes the setting feel new, yet familiar. This feeling applies to the gameplay as well; the shooting feels the same as the previous entry in the series, but your new found abilities make the combat, and especially the traversal, feel completely fresh.

There is no adequate way to describe the feeling of dropping from the sky next to a group of enemies, tossing a Freeze Blast in their midst and then shattering their frozen bodies with you automatic shotgun. To put it lightly, it feels gooood...

I can't stress enough how fun running, jumping, and gliding around fake Steelport is. It's so satisfying that Blazin' quickly became one of my favorite activities in the game. It's a new take on an activity that's been in SR since the second game. It used to be called Trail Blazin' and it's basically their version of checkpoint races. In previous iterations you'd perform these side quests on an ATV but, in SR4, you're on foot using your Super Sprint. I always enjoyed Trail Blazin', but it was never my favorite thing to do in the game. In SR4, it's a damn close second to the mainline story and loyalty missions.

Music to My Ears

I will be the first to admit that I am not the most musically inclined person. Very few games have music that serves as anything more than background noise to me; I almost never notice if it's any good or not. That's why I have to make special mention about the soundtrack in SR4, it's absolutely wonderful. I firmly believe that this game may have the best use of licensed music of any game, ever. There are just so many moments that are made ten times funnier by the games choice of song.

I don't want to spoil these moments, so the only example I'll give is one of the earliest. In the opening sequence I mentioned earlier where you're climbing the nuclear missile as it flies through the air, the Saints that were with you assume that you're not going to make it and start giving your their heart-felt goodbyes over the radio. And while this touching moment is happening, Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" begins playing in the background. It's so utterly perfect that I could barely keep playing because I was laughing so hard.

I think I might actually tear up.

When the Saint's Go Marching Out

Everything about Saint's Row 4 makes it feel like the perfect send-off for this series. Nearly every fan-favorite character from the previous games returns in some capacity and, as someone who's played every SR game to completion, the feelings of nostalgia were undeniable as the game tossed out references to some things from the past that I remember vividly, and other things that I'd forgotten about. You don't need to have played all of the previous games to enjoy this one but, if you have, your experience will be even more fulfilling.

That's not to say that there's nowhere else that this franchise could go. Personally I couldn't have imagined where else they could take it that would be crazier than space aliens and virtual realities, but the game's ending actually plants a pretty amazing seed that would be mind-blowing to see them follow through on. That being said, the people at Volition stated that this would be the last game in this version of the Saint's Row universe, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them move on to something else for their next game. Even if it's only to give them some breathing room before jumping back into this series.

In conclusion, I absolutely adored Saint's Row 4; it's easily one of my favorite game this year and I would recommend it to anyone. 

Game on!

Grove Street vs. The Row

This fall we will be treated to new entries in two series that I have a lot of love for, Saint's Row 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5. I am incredibly excited about both releases but when I began thinking about them I realized something; this is the first time these franchises have gone head-to-head like this and it's causing me some concern.

From San Andreas to Stilwater

Original Gangsta

You see, GTA: San Andreas came out in 2004 and the original Saint's Row which was... let's say "heavily inspired" by San Andreas was released in 2006. Okay, so Saint's Row was a borderline knock-off, but it was incredibly well done, unlike other GTA clones like the True Crime series or the remake of Narc. For that reason alone it was easy to overlook Saint's Row's similarities to Rockstar's popular franchise. There had also been enough of a time gap since GTA:SA that people were hungry for another game like that and Saint's Row was on the newest hardware generation, the Xbox and Playstation 3, giving it some extra oomph in the graphics department.

Semi-Original Gangsta

Saint's Row's gameplay was tight and it even managed to do some things better than San Andreas did; specifically the shooting mechanics were much better, in my opinion. It also tried to have a fairly serious story, but the writing just wasn't of the same quality that the GTA franchise had enjoyed. If you compare the games to Hollywood, the GTA series feels like your high-end, big budget gangster films like Scarface, Casino, or Boys in Tha Hood; Saint's Row feels "MTV" Gangster.

The storyline of the original SR gave you the impression the writers listened to entirely too much gangster rap and created a world that was all about "Hos and money." It wanted to be taken seriously, but often times came across laughable because it was just so ridiculous. This humor, intentional or not, lent the game and it's characters a fair amount of charm that many gamers, including myself, really enjoyed. That's not to say that all of the humor was unintentional; one of the side activities in the game involved you hurling yourself in front of oncoming traffic to rack up false insurance claims. The game certainly had some wackiness to it, but it was subdued, especially compared to what future iterations of the series would bring.

The first Saint's Row was a surprise hit for developer Volition and publisher THQ and it was clear that there would be more to come.

A break from tradition and a testing of the (Stil)water

If the glove don't fit...

Meanwhile, Rockstar had been hard at work creating the next entry in their biggest franchise, GTA IV. It was released at the end of April, 2008. The game was a massive hit, but some portion of the gaming community was disappointed by the more serious tone the game took on compared to San Andreas. Most of the game's humor was confined to satirical business names and billboards so that the story of Niko Bellic could maintain an air of grim reality.

Niko came to Liberty City to get out of crime and away from shady gangsters, but he was almost immediately thrown into the middle of a criminal culture that was foreign, yet all-too familiar for him at the same time.

I absolutely loved GTAIV and I though that Mr. Bellic's tale was brilliant, engaging, and sad to witness. However, some gamers were disappointed with it's more realistic approach; there were no jetpacks to fly, no gang territories to take over. It was just the story of one man struggling to eke out an honest life for himself while his sordid past sabotaged that from happening.

Sad Niko is sad...

Saint's Row 2 gave the behemoth that was GTAIV a four month berth, releasing in October of the same year. The designers at Volition had listened to feedback from the first SR; specifically that people enjoyed the crazier aspects of the original game and wanted more of it. They used SR2 to test the waters with more over-the-top game mechanics and a story to match.

Gangsta with a zany twist!

The result was a significantly more exhilarating and hilarious experience. Spraying down people and local monuments with a septic tank full of shit that had somehow been equipped with a hose, just to devalue the local property so that you can buy it up for cheap, is truly an experience I'll never forget.

Eww... Just, ew.

Unfortunately, the engine the game had been built on, the same engine Volition had created for the original game, just wasn't able to handle the kind of chaos they asked it to produce. This left the game with some serious performance issues that hampered the experience significantly. For example, one of the new activities, known as Trail Blazin', sets you on fire, places you on a quad, and asks you to drive trough a series of checkpoints within a set time limit. And oh yeah, anything you get near during this activity explodes... cars, trash cans, PEOPLE, they just fucking explode when you get close. It was a fantastic idea, but the frame-rate would routinely dip into the single digits once the explosions started getting too hectic, making the missions far more difficult and frustrating to play than they should have been.

Saint's Row 2 was flawed, but it was a necessary experiment that would help the franchise evolve into what it is today. It allowed Volition to test their audience's reaction and see whether or not this was the direction the series should be headed in. The answer was a resounding "Yes!" Volition now had a blueprint to take Saint's Row to the next level...

Wrasslin', Dildo Bats, and Gangsterism

Painful AND humiliating?!?!?

While Rockstar focused on new entries in their other franchises, like Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, Volition went straight to work crafting a new engine for the next installment of the Saint's Row franchise, Saint's Row The Third. And this time, there would be no holding back. From the outset, SR:TT was designed to be as over-the-top and crazy as they could possibly make it. The motto during the game's development was "fun trumps all". Meaning that if something was fun and exciting, then it didn't have to make logical sense right off the bat, they would find a way to incorporate it.

This design philosophy resulted in a ridiculously fun experience that nothing else could rival. It was a breath of fresh air in a year that was dominated by self-serious games, several if which were marking the end of a trilogy, such as Mass Effect 3 and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. That's not to say those games were bad; Mass Effect is my favorite franchise of this generation. It's just that dealing with all of these heavy, often tragic stories throughout the year made SR:TT feel like just what the doctor ordered.

The Third placed you back in the shoes of the leader if the Saint's and dropped you jnto Steelport, a brand new city for the series. The Saint's, now international celebrity criminals, had been challenged by a larger organization known as the Syndicate. And it was your job to show them why you don't fuck with 3rd street. Despite seeming like a pretty straight-forward setup, the story managed to take some interesting and unexpected twists, but I won't spoil them here.

How do you say "Oh, Shit!" in Belgian?

What made Saint's Row: The Third exceptional was the way that it flew in the face of traditional open world game design. Typically, in these types of games, you have to slog through with sub-par weapons and vehicles, while being arbitrarily cut off from a large portion of the game-world for many hours before the fun truly begins. And most of the early missions are mind-numbingly boring.

Volition threw you into the middle of some truly crazy missions from the outset. There were a few simple missions used to introduce the side activities on offer, but the game got to the fun quickly after that. Soon enough you were gaining access to insane weapons, like a laptop used to launch and guide missiles, floppy dildo shaped baseball bats, and exhilarating vehicles like Vtol jet bikes and tanks.

You'll be flying both of these sooner than you'd think.

Even more impressively, Volition was able to make every story mission unique and exponentially more crazy than the one you just finished. A few of these missions became instant classics and infinitely memorable. Ask anyone who's played the game about a mission called "Deckers Die!" and you will see a smile wash over their face.

This mission drops you into a near-copyright infringing world based in Tron where you must do battle with the leader of a gang of super-geek hackers. As you progress, the leader if this group tries to use his hacking skills to slow you down. Ever wondered what it would be like to play as a walking toilet?  How about a sex doll? Thanks to Saint's Row: The Third, you will wonder no more.

What did you think I was exaggerating?  THIS THA ROW BITCH!

Saint's Row: The Third received almost universal praise from critics and fans alike, garnered many awards, and was undeniably one of the funnest and funniest games of the year. Volition built upon the world of Steelport with several DLC packs before moving on to create the next game in the series, which they say will mark the end of the current SR storyline, but not the end of the franchise; provided that the game sells as well as the last few have.

The Face-Off

And finally we have come to the showdown. After years of putting months, if not years between each other's releases, we'll be seeing the latest entries in these two great franchises within one month of each other:

Saint's Row 4- August 23rd

Grand Theft Auto 5- September 17th

And Goddamn do they look fantastic!

From the streets to the white house

In Saint's Row 4 you have gone from street gangsta, to celebrity gangsta, to President of the United States... gangsta. And that's just the set-up. How could it get any more ridiculous, you ask? Your main nemesis throughout the game is an alien race that is trying to enslave humanity. Yeah, it's that kind of crazy. The final entry in the SR saga promises to reunite you with all your favorite characters from the previous games in the series, and it will give you even more freedom and super hero-like powers to wreak havoc on the world as you choose.

Los Santos welcomes you home.

Grand Theft Auto V places you in the shoes of three very different protagonists and gives you the freedom to switch between them at will. Each character has his own story and life to lead, but they're lives will converge as they plan to pull off big money heists, which is central to the game's story.

First up you have Michael, who is often described as the "GTA protagonist that won." He was a successful bank robber in his younger days but then turned state's witness against some of the people he'd previously worked for. This landed him in witness protection, living a comfortable, but soul-crushingly boring lifestyle. He yearns for the days of old and chooses to get back to what he was always good at.

Apparently money can't buy you happiness

To pull off these heists, Michael recruits his old pal Trevor; a meth-dealing psychopath who seemingly never wanted to get away from the life of crime. He is now living a trailer in the middle of the desert, fighting with biker gangs for territory. Unstable as he may be, Trevor is a skilled pilot and has always been loyal, so Michael seems willing to put up with his chaos.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

And finally there's Franklin, a street thug with ambition. Franklin works as a repo man, but also boosts cars on his own to make extra money. With his habit of hanging around with people wearing green, he seems to have ties with the Grove Street Families from GTA: San Andreas. However, petty crime simply isn't cutting it for Franklin anymore; he wants something more substantial. When Michael runs into him on the street one day, he quickly takes a liking to the young street kid and decided to take him under his wing to teach him a thing or two.

Grove Street 4 Life!

All three protagonists promise to have individual strengths and weaknesses, but you'll be able to increase each character's stats in several different areas over the course of the game. Also, while not in the middle of a mission, you'll be able to switch to any of the characters on the fly. So if you want to go from cruising the hoods of Los Santos as Franklin to off-roading through the desert as Trevor and finally end by playing a relaxing game of golf as Michael, you will be able to do so seamlessly.

Choices, choices

With both of these powerhouses coming out so close to one another, which do you choose? Personally, I will be playing both because I couldn't possibly neglect one for the other, and with a little less than a month between them I might be able to at least finish the main story of Saint's Row 4 before GTA V hits the streets.

But this may not be the case for a lot of people out there; Both games promise to offer massive worlds to explore, numerous story and side missions, as well as the endlessly replayable ability to go on a rampage for no particular reason whatsoever. It would be feasible to play either of these games exclusively for months to come, so what do you do?

This...

And that's where my worries start to seep in: I am excited for SR4, but I am HUNGRY for GTA V. There hasn't been a new Grand Theft Auto game in over 5 years and I cannot adequately describe how excited I am to see what the team at Rockstar North has been working on. I don't think that I'm alone in this either; there is a palpable feeling of anticipation for GTA V in the gaming community, and I just hope that Saint's Row 4 doesn't get steamrolled by it. I get the sense that, if you had to choose only one, a lot of gamers would go with the new GTA, simply because there hasn't been one in a while and they're always excellent.

...or this?

That being said, I think that Saint's Row 4 may be coming in just under the wire to give people time to enjoy it before it's bigger, beefier cousin steps in to steal their attention away. I certainly hope so; SR is a fantastic franchise from an amazing development team and I would love to seem them continue making them well into the next generation of hardware.

Either way, the next few months will deliver an extraordinary pair of games that are sure to be a fitting swan song for the current consoles before they're eclipsed by their successors. And with games like these, and the fact that neither the Xbox One nor the PS4 are backwards compatible, it's likely that those boxes will maintain a place in your entertainment center for some time to come.

Game on!

All hail the commander in chief

The Loss of a Great Man

The Bearded One

Rest in Peace, good sir.

Today I learned that Ryan Davis, co-founder of my favorite video game website GiantBomb.com, passed away on July 3rd, just days after his wedding. The news struck me so hard that I was left speechless. I had never even met Ryan, and yet it feels like I've lost a close friend. Giant Bomb has been my main source for everything video game related since I first discovered the site shortly after it launched back in 2008. I was already a fan of Ryan, Jeff Gerstmann, Brad Shoemaker, Alex Navarro, etc. from seeing them on gamespot.com before they all departed the site after Jeff was unfairly fired. So when I heard that they'd banded back together to form a new site, it was like a dream come true.

I am on giantbomb.com literally every day; watching videos, listening to podcasts, reading stories. Pretty much any free time I have that isn't spent with my loved ones or playing games is spent on the site. So, even though I'd never met him, I felt like I'd gotten to know Ryan Davis on some level. He always struck me as an incredibly jovial, friendly man; the type of guy I'd love to sit and have a beer with. The type of person I'd be proud to call my friend.

Vinny Caravella with Ryan on his wedding day

I often imagined meeting the Giant Bomb crew and shaking each of their hands and thanking them for all of the laughs they've provided me over the years. And it's just so hard to come to terms with the fact that the opportunity to thank Ryan personally has passed and will never come again. Just as often I'd dream of working as a writer for Giant Bomb and being a part of the shenanigans that we only get to hear about on the weekly Bombcast. It's still my dream to do just that, but I know it won't be quite the same without Ryan's signature cackle to put a stamp on the proceedings.

Cigars and money!

I don't know what else to say, I'm still grappling with this whole situation, but I'll leave your with this: Call a friend, hug a loved one; life is short and there's no telling when it will all be over. So, focus on the good times, forget the bad, and most of all, live it up while you can.

Finally, here are some links to some of my favorite Giant Bomb videos featuring Ryan:
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-again/2300-2346/
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-the-gunstringer-the-wavy-tube-man-chron/2300-4872/
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-ex-double-fine-happy-action-theater/2300-5567/
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/thursday-night-throwdown-041411/2300-4018/