I recently finished playing Control and I have to say I miss it already. It is a unique gameplay experience, combining a fantastic backstory, a fully formed world that rewards exploration, visceral combat and gameplay mechanics, and some of the most creative visuals and sound design I’ve ever seen or heard.  (Seriously, whoever did the sound design for the game should get a Grammy award). The first few times I played, I couldn’t play it too late at night because the atmosphere is so creepy that it was freaking me out.  That went away eventually, but the atmosphere in the Oldest House is a big star of the game. It varies from a corporate office that you would see at any local DMV to alien landscapes without skipping a beat. The puzzle and problem solving aspects were challenging but not frustrating, and generally highly rewarding.  One frustrating aspect of the game is that there is no difficulty setting (and you know I like to lower the difficulty when things get too tough).  That said, I was determined to see this through to the end, so while it might have taken a while to power through some of the missions, it was worth it.

The multilayered story reminds me of Horizon Zero Dawn in how stopping to read files, listen to audio tapes, talking to NPC’s, etc., fleshes out the experience in a rewarding way.  There are interesting self-referential elements from the Remedy’s past games like Alan Wake, especially having to do with some of the music elements. I went down some Wikipedia rabbit holes while on pause. 

The gameplay mechanics have done a great job capturing the supernatural elements of the game.  The Levitate power feels like you are flying in a dream.  Even the traditional “gun” has the unique ability to morph into different kinds of guns – think pistol, shotgun, machine gun, etc., but each with a twist.  I loved how you would enter a new section of the Oldest House and it would look so pristine, but by the end of whatever battle took place, the reactive environment was a total shambles (blame Launch, my favorite power, for that). The scenes with the “board of directors” are surreal and the Ashtray Maze mission is mind-bendingly unforgettable and sticks with you long after the you finish the game. 

After playing Control I think I’m finally ready to revisit Red Dead Redemption 2…let’s hope it loads faster.  But I’ll be back for the DLC for sure.

After finishing The Last of Us, I was choosing between Control and Spider-Man.  Spider-Man was on sale, so…Here we go with another giant open world game, like the Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, etc., which I sometimes find to be too much.  This was definitely a lot.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the game overall. The web swinging traversal part of the game was really fun, and it does a great job of giving you a feeling of speed and exhilaration as you move from place to place.  (By the way, I had no idea Spider-Man was that strong. Apparently, he can yank giant helicopters out of the sky and other feats of strength.) There are a few annoying features to the game, though.  The number of gadget and suit upgrades, in addition to skill upgrades, gave me a flareup of my chronic acute FOMO.  Am I going to be able to beat this boss without the eight bajillion gadget upgrades that are potential options?  Should I be investing my upgrade points into new suits? Do I have to do all these damn side missions in order to get the upgrade points needed to upgrade all my gadgets and suits and skills so I can progress in the game?  See where this is going?  It feels like there are 10 different types of side missions that take you all over the city, and some of them are just plain annoying (chasing pigeons, anyone???).

One other thing I’ve been doing lately that I am not proud of is changing the difficulty settings when I get stumped.  Somehow, it feels like cheating, but I just don’t have the patience anymore to spend an hour trying to beat a certain boss on the Amazing level.  I just bump the difficulty down to Friendly and get on with my life.  This reminds of when I didn’t even bothering finishing an Assassin’s Creed game, but watched a video playthrough of the last 10 minutes of the game on YouTube. Mission accomplished!

All in all, this was a solid and enjoyable game.  It was also spectacular to look at.  The game does a great job of capturing the look of New York, and giving you amazing vantage points to view the city.

So admittedly, I’m late to the game on The Last Of Us, considering it is was a last-gen game. It was one of those games I always meant to get to, but after the Red Dead 2 update fiasco, and coming off the Witcher, which was a huge, sprawling game, and God of War, which was heavy on button mashing, I figured it would be a nice change of pace. One of the more interesting aspects of The Last Of US is the element of scarcity.  In most games, you hardly ever run out of ammo (think Borderlands, CoD and such).  If you think about it, the amount of ammo you carry around in a CoD duty game must weigh 50 pounds (don’t quote me on that).  Over the course of The Last Of Us, if you ever have more than pocketful of revolver bullets or shotgun shells, you are in good shape. This scarcity affects every aspect of the game.  You explore every nook and cranny to try and find more alcohol for healing kits, or broken scissors, or sugar or whatever would be left in a post-apocalyptic, zombie infested world. You hesitate to fire your gun because you don’t want to waste bullets (or attract clickers). And of course, like any good post-apocalyptic game, the people who are left over are often worse than the zombies. 

The relationship between Joel and Ellie is also thoroughly developed over the course of the game.  I found myself mentally yelling at the screen a few times for Joel to just say something nice to Ellie or give her some words of encouragement, rather than always yelling at her like a jerk.  But by the end, the connection between them is so strong, that…I will leave the spoilers for you to search out on YouTube.  There is an emotional connection that develops between the player and the characters, as you are immersed in this disturbing world, with your pocketful of bullets and no health kits, as you make your way literally across the country over the course of a year. 

Update: HBO is making a series of The Last of Us, from the creator of “Chernobyl”, which is a must watch if you haven’t seen yet. Both of these will give you nightmares. 

The other night I sat down to play Red Dead Redemption 2. It was around 9:30 at night, which is typically when I start gaming. I put the disc in with great anticipation, ready to start riding across the wild west with my band of outlaw buddies. I fire it up…and am greeted with an update screen. That takes three hours to download. (To be fair, it was not the screen pictured above). Two days later when I sat down to play it again, the fire was gone. I played for a few hours and put it down. I’m now playing the remastered version of The Last of Us, which took me 15 minutes to download. Sometimes these games are too big for their own damn good. I’m sure I’ll revisit Red Dead 2, but first I have to get Ellie safely across the country with only a handful of bullets.

I recently finished the new(ish) God Of War game and found it to be a refreshing break from huge open world games where I go down the rabbit hole for hours and make no progress on the main quest (see: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, any recent Assassin’s Creed Game, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc.)  The game struck a good balance between main quest, side quests, and grinding for resources.  I also enjoyed the character development between Kratos and Atreus (or as my kids liked to call him, “boy”, but barked out in a Kratos-worthy growl. (“Dad why is he so mean to his son?”  “It’s complicated, kids.”)  Also, the ending left me a touch confused, but intrigued. 

Next up – Red Dead Redemption 2…here I come, giant open world! 

Ever since I was a kid, I loved video games.  From my neighbor’s Atari 2600 (my parents would never let me have one), to early computer games on the TI-99, Apple II+ and Commodore 64 (remember “Summer Olympics”?  LRLRLRLRLRLRLRSPACE), through to the PS1, PS2, a side visit with the XBOX 360, and back into the PS4 fold, they’ve been a constant in my life.  Now that I’m a grownup, I have less time to devote to playing, but I follow video game news even if I never play 90% of the games I read about.  I have to be choosy about what I play – if I only play a few games a year, I have to make them count.  If it’s not a 90+ on MetaCritic, I’m not interested.

GenXGamerDad.com was an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a while, and now it’s a reality.  I hope you enjoy the content!