Tag Archives: The Last Guardian

Updates and Changes – forever more

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It’s been a couple minutes hasn’t it? Where did I leave you? I guess a few things have transpired since we last talked. Let us catch up.

I’ve been fine. I’ve been heavily invested in a few different activities over the past few months. I completed Shadow of the Colossus. Still a great game; as good as I remember it being back when I played it on the PS2. Controls just as clunky, but still a fun ride.

I picked up the Last Guardian on the PS4 and I’ve been spending a little bit of time in that – not as much as I’d like as I’ve been suffering from what feels like motion sickness while playing it. I don’t know if this has to do with frame rate or the colours and brightness, but at certain points in the game it just feels off. This has restricted me to only playing roughly 30 minutes per sitting and then forcing me to take a break. I’ve heard that the game does play smoother on the PS4 Pro, so it may well just be a weird frame-rate issue that my brain has a hard time processing. I’ll also be picking up Horizon: Zero Dawn soon, as I would love to dive into that game.

I picked up Watch Dogs 2, and thoroughly completed that game. And I mean thoroughly. Every side mission, 99% of the achievements – I didn’t dabble too much in the online functions so there is still one more locked away. I have the season pass too, so I’m waiting on some upcoming story content which is around the corner.

I picked up some smaller games as well recently, in Feist and Candleman. Feist was just OK; it is similar to Limbo but with a more vibrant colour palette. You play a little furry monster and have to scramble and jump across the levels, avoiding traps and other monsters trying to kill you. You can pick up sticks and rocks to defend yourself. I found the controls to be a little slow on the response, and the game overall was fairly short. The bulk of the achievements involve completing each level without dying, and completing the level under a specific par time. Candleman is a puzzle-platformer where you play as a candle in dark lit levels, and you need to find your way to the end of each room, lighting other candles along way, while ensuring your wax does not run out. It is a gorgeous game with beautiful lighting effects. Easy, fun game, with easy, generous achievements.

In the co-op land, with Illestrader, we’ve wrapped up Gears of War 4 and are currently plugging away in Astroneer (Early Preview) and Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. We’ll be picking up Ghost Recon Wildlands in the next few weeks. I do occasionally stream on Twitch, so you can catch me there/here: www.twitch.com/irogans.

I’m currently playing Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and after that I have Mafia III, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Quantum Break and Far Cry Primal queued up.

On a completely non-gaming front, after Christmas, as an investment in my art, I purchased a Huion 22″ graphics pen monitor. I’ve always been interested in the Wacom Cintiq monitors, but could never justify the price point. So I went searching for alternatives, and came across the Huion. I love it so far, and it works well with all the applications I use, and for a fraction of the price. I even started up my long-desired webcomic – Stranger Than Friendship.

Its a comic about myself, and my best friend Illestrader, the games we play, and life in general. It’s been fun to do so far. Still in its infancy, however, I am trying to go for a once-per-week update schedule. I haven’t invested a whole lot of time into the website yet. I’m waiting till I have a little bit more of an archive before I start pushing it, and creating a domain. All things for this year.

I’ve added some photos of my recent work to the Arts gallery, and thats listed under the Stranger Than Friendship menu item now. I also started re-working on my Large Borderlands piece. Re-inking and re-colouring. Should be fun on my new tablet monitor.

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I drew this for #Camuary, in January

I think that pretty much sums up everything over the past few months. With the webcomic now, some of my time each week is dedicated that that, but I do wish to keep this side separate, and talk about games. Just gotta find the time to do everything.

-iRogan

 

BLURB: Shadow of the Colossus 

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In anticipation of The Last Guardian, I sat down to play through Shadow of the Colossus. Which is still, even after 11 years, a great game. The controls are a bit clunky, and the horse, Agro, tends to act like a horse sometimes, but I still felt the sheer awesome sight and size of the colossus, each time they appeared.

Agro is funny to watch sometimes:

 


Be good.

-iRogan

E3 2015 – Sony Press Conference – Live

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SONY E3 2015 Press Conference

*Live blog. Please refresh*

-Just a few minutes till the show. Some quick hopefuls: Uncharted 4, LOL THE LAST GUARDIAN? 

-6pm – Press conference is live. Showing a sizzle reel for all the upcoming Sony games.

-Please welcome Shawn Layden. New reality of gaming is boundless. More than traditional gaming with the social connectivity. First game of the night, highly anticipated by the Sony community. Heroism and companionship, poetic story telling. Alluding to Uncharted? Nope, The Last Guardian. WTF!!?!?

The Last Guardian

-Trailer shows gameplay. The child and his beast. His giant, winged griffon thing. The child mimics jumping and the beast jumps across the valley, and waits. The player traverses down the ladder and makes the jump himself, but won’t make it, so his beast catches him on the other side. We command the beast via the child we play. Very much like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. More like ICO with map platforming puzzles. Incredible level physics destruction. We need to make the run as the platform starts to come apart. The griffon misses the catch but uses its tail. Incredible emotional puzzles involving both the player and out beast, as we climb on its back and assist its climbing the ruins. The beast act and whines like a dog, has horns and feathers and little wings.

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– Sony has reintroduced The Last Guardian. 8 years after the first announcement. 2016. Acknowledge the visionary director behind the title.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

–Guerrilla Games Herman Hulst is up next. Makers of Kill Zone. Latest franchise. Captured on the PlayStation 4. Trailer starts in a cave covered in cave painting and hieroglyphics. Showcases Native Americans. Alludes to a time after the fall of man, of the big cities. Of the re-birth of a new planet as the cities faded away. New life. New tribe.

“The first to hunt, the first to raise our bows.”

The animals are now robots. A new take on the battle between man and machine.

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-Game looks gorgeous. Huge techno dinosaur-like creatures. Smaller techno deer-like creatures. Traditional bow and arrow, but with arrow mods. Awesome destruction elements. Game play shows the huntress taking on a large robotic dinosaur with the bow and arrow, one on one. One bow mod is a grappling tether that can attach to the ground. Then highlighting the weak point, takes it down. Horizon: Zero Dawn.

“A storm is coming”

From the creators of Kill Zone, this game looks absolutely incredible.

Hitman

–Square Enix. Pre-rendered trailer showing an impressive future, celebrities, important people, and then cut with an agent running, cut to a sniper. New Hitman. The agent running in the woods was Hitman. Beautiful trailer.

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-World premiere of the new Hitman. Exotic locations. High profile targets. Agent 47 returns. Most ambitious title to-date. Starting with a digital release.

-PS4 exclusive beta to PS4 first.

Street Fighter 5

-Starts with a gameplay trailer. Showcases some of the iconic fighters. Very cool gameplay with the same art style as the previous game. PS4 beta starts July 23rd.

No Man’s Sky

–Hello Games, Sean Murray. No Man’s Sky. Gameplay starts in the ship, and leaves the space station to space. Shows that we’re on the boundary of two warring factions where we can join in and take sides.

-Zooms out and shows our current location in the current solar system. Pulls back and shows more stars, that can be reached. Pulls back more! Forever more. Every point is a sun, and each sun has a solar system with planets and life. The map zooms out forever. Sean says most of these places have never been visited and may never be.

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-We’re gonna pick a place at random, and travel to a place we haven’t been to. Procedurally generated galaxy, undiscovered. Scans of the solar system shows points of interest. Beacons are found, and this is where you can upload discoveries, as we land on the planet. Not the prettiest planet he jokes. “I’ve seen better”. Every planet is fully destructible. The planet’s sentinels show up and we walk away under water, and fish are shown. The beacon is found to upload our discovery. Every planet is new and unique.

-Will announce a release date soon. Trading, fighting, exploring, survival. It’s a huge game.

Dreams

–Media Molecule, makers of Little Big Planet. New game challenges our ability to create. Think of a dream like world. Share the dream space of others and share you creation to others. Game is like a moving painting. Using the controller at the paint brush. Quick, intuitive, and fun. Piece together a painting and then act it out, using controller performance capture as puppeteering. Quick trailer shows some of the dreams made with the tool: piano player, polar bear, space battles, teddy bear vs ground monsters, back to the piano player who  is now a polar bear. Game doesn’t have typical polygons or animations. Art is fluffy looking.

Firewatch

-Intense mystery in the Wyoming wilderness. Firewatch. Blocky models and very colourful. Trailer is narrated by a woman’s voice and we talk to her throughout the adventure. First person forest adventure game. Dark and mysterious adventure.

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Destiny

-Next great adventure in Destiny. Trailer announces Orix, the Take King. Follows the Crota Raid. Orix is out for revenge, as we killed his son, and is bringing a dark army to hunt us. Shows the new subclasses for each guardian. New enemies, new planets?

“Orix is coming. You’ve got his attention, now go get his head”

Destiny: The Taken King coming September 15th, 2015. Exclusive content on PlayStation.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

-Trailer starts with Jocob Frye’s voice, but the main focus is Evie Frye, his twin sister. Shows the new weapons for Evie, the cane-sword, and throwing knives. Exclusive missions called the Dreadful Crimes, for the PS4.

World of Final Fantasy

-Cute little trailer with cartoony characters.Welcome to Grimwoir. Show’s tiny monsters. Adorable enemies and heroes. Small in stature with a grand fate. Small and cute. PS4 and PS Vita. World of Final Fantasy.

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-Very special treat from Square Enix. Trailer shows a revolutionary city, with ominous music. Jaws-like. Final Fantasy 7 Remake. First to Playstation 4. People are flipping out!

-4 new games from Devolver Digital:

  • Ronin – assassin-like 2-d sidescroller.
  • EITR – pixel hack and slash.
  • Mother Russia Bleeds, pixel gore brawler.
  • And Crossing Souls, cartoony adventure game.

–Shenmue 3? “Time to unfold the story.” Announced via Kickstarter. Yu Suzuki comes to the stage to discuss the project. Countdown to the kick off of the kickstarter. 5,4,3,2,1.

-Start funding. 2 million dollar goal.

Batman Arkham Knight

-Steam works type trailer, with old music. Joker. Batman Arkham Knight. :).  Joker is in a furnace getting torched. Flames turn into the bat symbol.

-First person perspective of Officer Owens in a diner. Gets attacked by scarecrow and starts to seen crazy enemies. Scarecrow Missions exclusive for PS4.

-This game looks especially dark. and comes out next week. WOo!

Project Morpheus and Playstation Media

-VR landscape look awesome, providing such innovative game options for developers. Morpheus will allow co-op game play with other people. Multiplayer game Rigs is shown, 3 vs. 3 multiplayer arena game. Morpheus is a choice, add value to the console.

-Partnered Playstation Music with Spotify. Expanded Playstation View, live TV streaming service. Allow users to subscribe to individual channels, not ties to bundles. PS Plus members get discounted rates.

-Playstation is partnering with Activision to bring Call of Duty. Playstation gets COD first now.

Call of Duty Black ops III

-Deepest and most engaging COD ever, campaign, multiplayer, and zombies. Gritty campaign, redesigned from the ground up. Load-out available before the mission starts, and supports 4 player co-op.

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-Game looks good, and smooth. Starts in a ship, and we find the pilot with reenforcing bar stabbed through the chest. The ship falls and we need to leave. Very futurist looking. New powers available with the suit. Advanced battleground with lots of spider tanks and walkers. Ability to control friendly walkers. Level destruction looks amazing. Lots of digital HUD elements. Story sizzle reel trailer wraps up.

-David Vonderhaar – Treyarch. Introduce Black Ops III multiplayer. Game play trailer shows new powers and mobility, and female fighters. Underwater parts to the maps. Multiplayer looks fast and epic.

-New era with Call of Duty and Playstation. New home of Call of Duty, getting all dlc map packs first.

-Sizzle reel of upcoming titles. Hitman, Batman, Dues Ex, Mad Max, Uncharted, Horizon, Destiny, Metal Gear Solid, MLB, Street Fighter, LEGO, The Last Guardian, and Until Dawn. Ratchet and Clank too.

-PS Vita sizzle reel up next: Tearaway, Dreamers, Tony Hawk, among others.

Star Wars

-Star Wars music blasts into the arena. Shawn Layden is back to discuss Disney Infinity, Twilight of the Republic. Epic light-saber combat. Rise Against the Empire playset. Disney Infinity 3.0. Wold premiere trailer – Rise Against the Empire. Ends with Boba Fett.

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–Star Wars Battlefront. Patrick Bach – DICE, comes to the stage. Here to discuss the co-op and solo game modes. Battle game mode, hero encounters, trials, and survival are the solo and co-op options for the game. Trailer debut for Survival – wave based gameplay. Shows storm troopers and shock troopers. Gameplay looks amazing with authentic sounds and blasts. Lots of sparks, like the movies. Split screen support. Tag line – Live out Your Fantasies.

Uncharted: A Thief’s End

-Small title up next, which requires no introduction. Only on PlayStation. Long delay here….

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-Starts with a statue of Black Beard. Naughty Dog. Nate and Sully enter the shot, and open a large wooden door into a market. Gameplay shows lots of people milling about the market. Looks like the demo is having controller malfunction though. Nate’s not moving.

-Demo restarts with the Pirate statue. LOL. Woops. Visuals look amazing at least. Lots of interactions with the civilians.  Gun fire in our direction, and the real demo begins. Amazing physics, and level destruction. Great animations as expected. Gun play looks a little more consistent and refined. Still Triangle to pick up ammo. Witty dialogue still apparent between Sully and Nate. Great dialogue.

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-Amazing level platforming and the ability to drive vehicles. Different paths can be taken to avoid enemy gunfire. Great level destruction while driving. Seems we can drive anywhere. Come across a construction site, and have to go off-road. Enemy truck drives through the wall. Camera zooms in on Nate and Sully to show highlighted points of interest.

-Driving sequence is amazingly detailed. Following a convoy now, off-road. Nate jumps up front and tell Sully to grab the wheel. We grapple on the truck and swing under the bridge and the truck attached to the convoy. Demo ends when we are about to crash into a wall.

*breath*

-Press conference over.

-Phew. Typical with Sony’s Conferences, there’s no room for breathing, just game after game. They’ll probably break the internet with FF7 and The Last Guardian, and Uncharted 4.

-E3 Day Zero is over. Tomorrow I’ll talk about Square Enix’s conference. Hopefully more info about Hitman and Dues Ex.

-I’ll prob discuss a little more about my thoughts and opinions on each announcement, and what has me most excited.

-iRogan

NEWS – Those Mid-Week Lulls Tho

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So I have a new co-op buddy and we’re going to be going through Tomb Raider – Temple of Osiris. Yay!

On the 360, in 2010, Tomb Raider – Guardian of Light was released and it revealed that the single player Tomb Raiding narrative isn’t always needed. It provided a smart simplistic co-op game, in the top-down dungeon crawler view, with clever puzzles and fun combat.

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4 years later, and a next-gen transition – Tomb Raider – Temple of Osiris. Graphically it’s not much of an upgrade, but it is bigger in scope. It is now 4 player capable, and the puzzles actually reform, depending how many players are in the room. More of a preview to come.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is Real, and its actually called Mirror’s Edge Catalyst
The team at DICE have confirmed that this is not Mirror’s Edge 2, it’s not a direct sequel.

“is not a sequel, this is not Mirror’s Edge 2. We have landed on a vision that honors the first game — pushing the boundaries of first person movement and diving deeper into the story behind our heroine Faith — but also brings a lot of great new, interesting gameplay and features to the experience for our players.”

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Mirror’s Edge will be at E3 as well. Colour me excited.

Adr1ft – So, Like Gravity – The Video Game?

Will We See The Last Guardian at E3?
The Last Guardian will finally be getting a re-reveal at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, apparently.

“on very good authority that this will be the year that Team Ico finally presents its follow-up to much loved classics Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.”

The Last Guardian was first announced for PlayStation 3 back in 2009, but thanks to studio troubles, the title still has yet to see the light of day.

Over the next few days I’ll be discussing Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and posting an iReview for Sniper Elite III.

We’re getting into the real news, just around the corner with E3. I hope to bulk up the E3 Hub page with more info heading into the event that starts Sunday with Bethesda.

-iRogan

New Games, New Cities, New News

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“Cities has a weird way of making me forget to blink, or watch the clock…” I say absently, clicking away, creating trees along a gravel path between houses.

“Don’t you have to work tomorrow? It’s 2AM.” She replies.

“Just need to add a bus depot and map the routes…” I mumble. “This traffic is brutal.”

I wish my city creation was this pretty.

I wish my city creation was this pretty.

Continuing with my review-in-progress of Cities: Skylines, my 2nd play through last night was definitely more successful as I slowly learned the hidden intricacies of the game. The game will tell you how to build a road, but skips on the minutia of creating a successful highway off-ramp. Go figure it out, I guess? It’ll tell you how to paint districts, and glaze over the district specializations, but how about letting me know how to find the resources on the map for specializations?

*4 hours later* Oh there’s an Info Pane for that. Wait WHAT, there’s an info pane that shows me all this? You didn’t think to maybe mention this first, Game?

My city did survive the night this time. Didn’t need to skip town as Mayor like last time, while the power was out. Check mark in the positive column.

Stay tuned for further impressions throughout the week.

Out today, new and notable, for March 17th, 2015:

  • Battlefield Hardline (Xbox One, PS4, PS3, XBOX 360, PC) – Started playing this last Thursday during the EA Access trial on the Xbox One. I’m excited that it’s now out fully and I can play through the campaign. You can read my first impressions: Here
  • Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 2 (Xbox One, PS4, PS3, XBOX 360, PC) – Titled Atlas Mugged. The  Telltale Bundle is still sitting on my “ready to be installed” list, waiting to be played. Thursday I’m picking up an external HDD so I can install my full library. Man, that’ll feel good. Much bandwidth. I do think the first series I play will be Wolf Among Us. Starting to get worried about my ever-growing list of unplayed games. Might need to hire an intern to play my games for me.

There is absolutely nothing of interest to me, out there, on Earth, at all. Save these tidbits of news today:

Nintendo’s New Partnership and New Hardware?

Nintendo announced today a new partnership with DeNA to develop a mobile platform, to bring their library to mobile devices. They were also quick to point out that they’re not out of the console market, stating that they are developing a next-gen dedicated gaming system, code named “NX”. No further details on the console till next year.

The Last Guardian Trademark Filed Again

Announced back in 2009, Sony’s The Last Guardian is vapourware at this point. Sony has filed for the trademark for a 3rd time, and stated that the game is still in development. Whether that means it’ll be the same envisioned game, still on the PS3, now on the PS4, who knows. It’s gone the ways of Prey 2 for all I’m concerned.

Weekly Deals With Gold

Grand Theft Auto takes the front line this week for Xbox’s game sales.

On the Xbox One you can purchase the in-game credit card, which included $500,000 in-game currency for $10 off the retail price. $59.49 USD. Gross. OlliOlli is on sale as well.

On the Xbox 360, GTA V, GTA IV, San Andreas, and GTA IV expansions are on sale.

All for naught, you should probably go outside…

-iRogan