My top anticipated games for 2014

If you don't follow gaming releases too much, or if you do and want to find some new up-coming games that I think will be good, then this is a list for you. These are in order of release date, not by most anticipated to least anticipated. Let's get straight to it.

Thief (February 25)

Thief has been a popular series back in the day. Although the game made its last appearance in 2004, the game is still well known within the gaming community. My favorite games are stealth based games, and there are not nearly enough out there for me to enjoy. Assassin's Creed sadly is becoming the new Call of Duty, becoming worse and worse every year, so that's not an option for me any more. This game may fill that void for myself. This game looks amazing and I hope they make the game fairly difficult because nothing is worse than an easy stealth game.

Dark Souls 2 (March 4)

Dark Souls is the most evil, dark, mysterious, horrifying, unforgiving game I have ever played. And I love every second of it! Literally, you're placed in a world, told that you need to ring two bells, and that's the only direction you're ever given in that game. I know it doesn't sound like the greatest of experiences, but I've never felt so much satisfaction while playing this game. Every boss battle is memorable. Every fight is challenging. Every victory gives the most rewarding feeling, and that is why I love this game. I actually feel like I accomplished a feat. The difficulty in this game is perfect. For those who think games are way too easy and hold your hand, then please pick up Dark Souls, and enjoy the hell out of that game. 

Titanfall (March 4)

If you loved Call of Duty 4, then you may want to look at this game. The developers that made Call of Duty 4, left Infinity Wars (because they were sick of making Call of Duty), and made a FPS that sounds like an amazing concept. Just picture mechs, and parkour, and shooting people. If that doesn't get you rowdy, then just check out the trailer and game footage on their website. It looks pretty amazing, and is highly anticipated by a lot of gamers. 

The Elder Scrolls Online (PC: April 4, PS4 Xbox One: June)

 If anyone knows me, they would know I'm a HUGE elder scrolls fan! I have about 200 mods on Skyrim and still play it today. I've put and extreme amount of hours into oblivion, and I'm probably over hyped about this game. But honestly, I don't even care, this actually looks like it will be a successful MMORPG. It sucks that they're going for a pay-to-play subscription, but hopefully (although unlikely) they will change that to just buying the game in order to play it.

 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2014)

The Witcher 3 looks like the RPG game that will destroy all other games in the genre. The graphics look amazing, the gameplay in The Witcher 2 was, in my opinion, fantastic. If you like RPGs, then this is the perfect game for you. The depth in this game is unmatched and I can't wait to see what they added to the ending of a fantastic trilogy.

Tom Clancy's The Division (2014)

 If you saw the E3 gameplay footage of this game, you would now why this game looks amazing. The Tom Clancy series has always been a strong series, but there was never that huge breakthrough game that gave them the popularity that the series deserves. This might be the title that does it though. Check out the gameplay demo on YouTube, and you'll find out why this game looks cool as hell. 

 

Watch Dogs (Spring 2014)

When this game didn't come out in November, I was pretty disappointed. Although it only gets me more excited that the game will be even better now. Grand Theft Auto is getting a bit repetitive, and this would be a nice twist being able to use your environment to be your weapon, rather than just shooting everything you see and getting away from the cops easily. 

DayZ Standalone Quick Overview/Review

For those who don't know what DayZ is, it was an ArmA 2 mod that features an online multiplayer zombie invasion. What makes this game so great, is that it's very realistic, and very immersive.

DayZ is known for two things:

          1. Never trust anyone. Ever.
          2. Seriously never trust anyone.

Although it may seem ridiculous, the reality is that it's true. Whenever you see another player in the game, chances are they're going to kill you without asking any questions.

So the DayZ standalone features everything that the mod had, hunger meter, thirst meter, bleeding, looting, PvP, and now some new things and more things to come (as the game is currently in the early-alpha stage). The new things that you can do now are:

• Able to chamber a bullet instead of having to put an entire mag (this is only done when you can't find any mags but you have bullets for your gun)
• Clothes and character customization! (Although the character customization isn't very in-depth, I can imagine they may add some more features in the future. Clothing is pretty cool as well, not only can you actually use the pockets in the clothing to store your gear, but it's easier to identify friends from foes as well.)
• Crafting (very limited right now, but I can see this being a very important feature later in development. Shirts can be torn into rags, and a wooden stick and a rag will make a wooden splint that can fix broken legs.)
• Improved inventory system! (finally, a manageable and easy to use inventory system that we've all been waiting for! Literally, it's just a click and drag, and it's that easy now.)
• Handcuffs and being able to force feed (force feeding is good when a friend has food and can feed you. It's bad when you're handcuffed and a bandit feeds you disinfectant spray or rotten fruit)

Obviously since the game is in alpha, there will be bugs, some bugs that I've encountered are:

• When placing an item on the ground, it will not show up right away. But if you wait a minute or two, it will eventually show up on the ground.
• Character resetting. This can be frustrating because after hours of looting and surviving, suddenly everything is gone and you need to start over. It is now less frequent though, and Rocket is continuing to address the issue.
• Not a lot of zombie encounters. Although this isn't really a bug, it's definitely something to bring up to potential buyers of the game. Right now, Rocket is testing their servers and fixing more important bugs of the game, so not a lot of zombies are on the servers right now.

These are all the bugs that I have personally encountered. I'm sure there are way more and if you want to find out more, you can do so by googling it. 

Right now, I have very high hopes for DayZ, the dev team is doing an amazing job fixing known bugs every day and releasing updates everyday for the game. If you don't want to encounter all these bugs and want to wait for the game to be refined a bit more, it's completely understandable and it's what Rocket recommends for most people. But, if you're a big DayZ fan like myself, then the standalone will surely not disappoint you at all. It's an amazing experience like no other and gives you a certain rush that no other game can achieve.

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone!

I will be returning to writing in this blog starting tomorrow! Stay tuned for content and have a happy holiday!