My Year of Gaming in 2019: A Gaming Blog Post

My Year of Gaming in 2019: A Gaming Blog Post

Kingdom Hearts III

Far Cry 5

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Days Gone

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Old Blood & II: The New Colossus

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

A 100% Completion including DLC.

inFAMOUS Second Son

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 1, 2, 3 Full Burst & 4

Including all DLC.

Marvel's Spider-Man

100% Completion Including all DLC.

Grand Theft Auto V

100% Completion & Continued Online Play (ALMOST AT THE PLATINUM TROPHY!!)

Death Stranding

Just Started and am in progress.

Playing Amazing Games in 2019

Most people who know me, know that I am a weird individual when it comes up to gaming. Video games to me is a passion and also a way of life, its something meaningful and I take it to the extent of enjoyment, entertainment, innovation and education. I one day hope to become a successful game designer or developer. Any involvement is a dream of mine I hope to fulfill in the days to come. This post is about the games I played this year. Some come from the past and some are current to today’s design and innovation. 

The way I play is weird, I play in a specific order, even when a new game comes out and my interest is there. I do not just surf over to different games, but that’s just how I enjoy my games. They are like a project sometimes, but that is the fun of it. For the first time this year, I started actually going completion mode on some of these games either to retire or just for bragging rights. But I had an order and they were a list of some amazing games! I am mostly a story guy, I love good stories and I think Video Games in 2019 tells some better stories than what you see at a movie theatre projector.

Kingdom Hearts III (2019, PS4)

This year, I started off with a bang and with extreme excitement as the long awaited, Kingdom Hearts III was in my hands and ready for a good start. Most people know I have theorized and wondered about this game for over a decade since Kingdom Hearts II’s release in 2006 here in North America. Before going to Red Dead Redemption 2 last year, I actually played the entire series up to this game and even watched the entire series again to be completely caught up so nothing would catch me off guard. Well, this game completely succeeded in that!

I am one of the few or many that actually enjoyed this game and was disappointed that it did not make much award presence this year. I loved the Game play and the smooth Level Design. The Story made me feel like a kid again and I will admit, I had some disappointment with the lack of Final Fantasy character involvement, but I felt the team at Square Enix and Tetsuya Nomura did a great job telling a great ending of a saga in a wonderful, yet expansive franchise of games and with the work done on Unreal Engine 4 with level design and mechanics. I loved the many things you could do with the environments that Sora, Donald and Goofy were in and there were many fun and cheesy mini games that I actually enjoyed. The Photo mode was brilliant and the 8-Bit games added in the game were also a fun past time as well. 

The game picks up where you left off after Dream Drop Distance released on the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 and remastered for PS4 in 2017. Sora, Donald and Goofy are going to many worlds to Unlock Sora’s Power of Waking to restore the lost hearts of the beloved characters of the previous games. They end up traveling many worlds running into familiar faces and new faces, familiar places and newer places. They encounter many of the “New Organization” members along the way as they complete each world. It leads to a culmination of a climatic battle that many fans have been waiting years for. 

My favorite moments definitely happen at the end of the game with the climax at hand, but I really just loved what they did with the Pirates of the Caribbean world with the Ship game play, the open world, the collectibles and just that beautiful design and integration of Sora, Donald and Goofy within that level. The world design is just amazing and I couldn’t ask more from the prestigious team at Square Enix! The ending completely caught me off guard and left me in shambles! Then the secret ending happened and now I am just as curious as I was before playing this game! I love the fact that Tetsuya Nomura will always have you thinking!

I think this game gets a real bad rep for what Square Enix is giving you. Hopefully the ReMIND DLC next year brings the Kingdom Hearts community more closer and less divided over this promising title in the series. 

Far Cry 5 (2018, PS4)

Last year, I played this game, enjoyed it and knew from the top of my head that I was going to play this again in the next couple of years if I got to it. I did and have no shame or regrets. Ubisoft in my opinion, did a wonderful job on this title bringing the Rambo style of game to the Northern Wilderness of beautiful and fictitious Hope County of Montana. The environment is beautiful, the wildlife is very responsive and the cultists of Joseph Seed’s Project of Eden’s Gate are extremely dangerous almost everywhere in Hope County. They did such a good job connecting their narrative to current US politics and mindset in our hearts with all that is going on in the country and the planet. 

You are an officer of the Hope County Sherrif’s Department known as Rook. You can play as a male deputy or a female deputy in the game. A female-fronted protagonist being a first in the entire Far Cry series. You are to arrest Joseph Seed in his cult-controlled Hope County Compound. The beginning is completely intimidating as you know things are going to go crazy in a few minutes. Once you choose to arrest Joseph Seed, your fate is sealed as you take him to the chopper resulting in it being shot down. With your fellow deputies, the sheriff and the same FBI agent that took you there to arrest The Father of the Project of Eden and not only you barely escape with your life and are saved. You are tasked then to take Hope County back by taking out specific regions and their leaders which happen to be Joseph’s brothers and adopted in or accepted sister.  

My favorite moment in this game is when you are just starting! So much to do and many cultists to take out at once! 

This game is all raging chaos and until you take out this cult, they will hunt you like no other. I felt the patch can be a little to precise and it was easy to catch on on where you stood in the story. However, there is more you can do in this game like the Far Cry arcade, you can design your own levels like previous games, you can hunt, fish and just take in this beautiful world in first-person view that Ubisoft created with their Dunia Engine. I liked this game and I hope the next Far Cry is elevated and just as action packed as the ones before! 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017, Nintendo Switch) 

Im just going to get started that I regret not playing this title when it came out in March of 2017. This is a brilliant masterpiece that will be remembered just like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In my opinion, it is just as good as Ocarina of Time except it is a lot more challenging than that game.

I was very skeptic of this entry as I felt the design was a left turn with how video games are looking nowadays. But after playing, I understand the cel-shade design and cartoonish point of view in art as it brings something new to life with modern game design. It brings together creativity that has been needed for a long time.

The map is just outstanding, flawless and breathtaking with the inclusion of frame rate and player movement. You can just stop and take a moment to look at the beauty of the game. The feel of this game is a mixture of futuristic design integrated with the series, but has that classic storytelling of the original Legend of Zelda game with Ocarina of Time elements of the open world sandbox design.

This game will make you work for the victories and items. You are not safe in this world and you always need to have a good inventory to ensure survival. You need to be prepared in hostile environments and well prepared for battle. Environments and elements around the map will make challenges you will need to be ready for. Mountains are slippery when wet. You will freeze or burn to death in specific areas on the map such as Death Mountain or Nighttime in the Gerudo Desert. There is no linear way of playing this game and you can even head straight to the final boss (which is not a great idea) and take Calamity Ganon at once.

The story follows a reawakened Link in a Hyrule that has regressed from a previous technology and incarnations of individuals that stops the Calamity Ganon that haunts and attempts to rule Hyrule time and time again. However, because Hyrule regressed to more of a medieval way of living and were trying to relearn this technology to protect the world from Ganon. Unfortunately, they failed and Link passed away (nearly) and was taken to the Shrine of Reincarnation to live within the next one hundred years. You wake and see Hyrule in ruins, despite the beauty. You end up taking back Hyrule by going to specific regions and reawakening the Divine Beasts that were used to originally stop the Calamity Ganon which were basically overtaken by Ganon. They are in four regions in which Link must reapply his strength and capabilities in each region and overcome each carnation of Ganon that defeated the original champion of the Beast and be ready to go straight towards Hyrule Castle for the final battle.

It felt new, fresh and just honestly breathtaking. I was very happy with this game but also heartbroken getting to know each character in the story and how impacted Hyrule was after the Calamity Ganon had taken over Hyrule. They made Zelda from a distressed princess to a hard working and brave princess ready to give her all to protect her kingdom. I loved every inch of this game despite my rage on one boss battle. It took me a month to beat this one and I still have shrines to complete! The dungeon design and mechanisms were out of the world and new to the franchise. It felt refreshing to play a new Legend of Zelda game here in 2019! My favorite moment is defeating Ganon and tying it up with those amazing views!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 has been announced and honestly, that means I am coming back here before playing that one! I am very excited as always for this franchise! 

Days Gone (2019, PS4) 

I was excited for this release since they announced it. Basically taking Sam Witwer (Starkiller from The Force Unleashed) to a mixture of Sons of Anarchy meets The Walking Dead on steroids, and I mean that with no understatement. The hordes of zombies or “freaks” in this game come in hundreds and hundreds of the freaks and you have to kill them all alone at once. I was sold when I saw that first trailer.  Developed by Bend Studio in Bend, Oregon, Days Gone is a beautiful game built in Unreal Engine 4. It takes place in basically Bend or Farewell, Oregon near Deschuttes County in Oregon. The same studio that made Syphon Filter! Who would have thought!

The gameplay is open world sandbox style, with your ability to ride and upgrade the protagonist, Deacon St. John’s bike to full ability by doing quests and many side quests to improve the Deacon’s weapons and Bikes. The open and broken roads are beautiful, yet dangerous. There was always trouble brewing, especially at night! 

I actually enjoyed this game and the story behind it. Especially in the end with the many twists and improvements in character development. I enjoyed the open world, killing the hordes and doing camp missions. 

You play as Deacon St. John in a post apocalyptic open world in Midwestern Oregon. It starts off with the premise of Deacon’s wife being stabbed and taken by NERO to a safe location that eventually gets overrun by the freaks. With Deacon believing her dead, him and his best friend, Boozer setup camp in a Fire Watch Tower in the Cascade Wilderness. They both are members of a former motorcycle club that ran in Oregon. It starts with Boozer being wounded and with Deacon doing missions for Camps to get them supplies. Eventually, Deacon notices a chopper and attempts to get answers about the night in question and does missions from a member of NERO. Deacon and Boozer eventually relocate over to a camp they were once at and as Boozer got worse and had to do some work for that camp. The people responsible for Boozer’s injury, the Rippers get into war with the camp with the villainous Skizzo selling out Deacon and the camp. Eventually Deacon finds out that there is a possibility that his wife is alive and I will leave it from there. 

This game was amazing despite the critics’ reviews. I liked the gameplay and compelling story. Once you got to the hordes, it just got even better. My favorite moments was taking out the Sawmill Horde by Lost Lake Camp. I hope Days Gone 2 is elevated and even more action packed than the first. It can only get better from here! Cheers Bend Studio! 

Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017, PS4) 

Like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I was skeptical of this one! But as soon as I started, I was engaged more than I ever was for a game. I really enjoyed this one! Developed by Guerilla Games (KillZone) with their internal and amazing engine (Decima) that made the latest KillZone Games, SuperMassive Games’ thriller, Until Dawn and Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding this year! I am actually a huge fan of this engine and its capabilities!

The gameplay is open world and you can get as creative as you want to complete tasks and quests in this game. I just love the post-apocalyptic design of the obvious city of Utah and Nevada. Going to the old cities, it really looks like something messed up happened and it gets you more curious as to what happened. Your enemy, the machines! It’s like as if the humans created machines ready for battle. And they did which might have caused an apocalypse of sometime.

You play in post-apocalpytic Utah and Nevada as Aloy a new member, once reject and seeker of the Nora Tribe to the east that worships allmother which ends up being an AI machine. You start with Aloy’s early life with unknown parents and raised by Rost as rejects of the Nora. She works her entire childhood to train for the proving to become a Nora Warrior. She succeeds, but the Nora are attacked by the Shadow Carja tribe that are a little more advanced and even have weapons we know and love today. The Carja were once all one but with the fall of the king and the rise of his son to take the kingdom, the Shadow Carja was formed. Aloy is nearly killed but with Rost’s sacrifice, she survives and is assigned to Seeker to hold the attackers accountable and to discover who origins and who her parents were. Aloy comes to aid for the Carja and others around the land becoming a true warrior. She meets the enigmatic Sylens who is in search of knowledge of all that happened before and you spend finding out Aloy’s origins by traveling through ancient ruins with Aloy’s focus. 

I love this game, and I guarantee that this will be played again next year as the story was compelling and got me out of my seat time and time again. I just loved the storytelling, the narrating and the growth of Aloy. I loved Ashly Burch’s performance as her. There is no favorite moment as I cannot tell you how much I appreciated this game. It will go down as one of my all favorites. It took me by surprise and with doing what I do it connected to me like no other game. I am highly anticipating on hearing about a sequel coming up!

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004, PS2 (PS4 Re-Release))

CJ is back! Not literally, but diving back to this 2004 classic brought back many memories. Developed none other by Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is beloved and remembered by many as one of the best of all time. The story was there, the cheats were unreal and the connection of Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas) was just wowed by many gamers. 

You play as Carl Johnson, CJ who comes back to grieve and be with his family and friends of the Grove Street Family Gang in Los Santos from Liberty City. He intends to stay, especially under the watch of NOOSE members Officers Tenpenny, Pulaski and Hernandez doing dirty work for the officers. CJ and the gang eventually take over Los Santos and with a confrontation and assault on the rival gang Ballas, it ends up being a coup and betrayal from CJ’s own friends and Tenpenny and Co. CJ ends up building business in San Fierro and Las Venturas to a inevitable and incredible comeback to Los Santos. 

This game is a ninstant classic and I do not see myself retiring it for the remainder of my days. I really loved the map, the game play, the cheats and the many more cracks in the game that was included. 

Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Old Blood & II: The New Colossus (2014, 2015 & 2017, PS4)

I never for one ever played the Wolfenstein series from back in the day. The resurgence in 2009 caught my eye, but I never got to it. I ended up watching it after getting the bundle of these games in a PS Store sale. I got started right away and seriously enjoyed taking out these Nazis in this game, the important part in this is location and timing. The games (other than The Old Blood which is a prequel to The New Order) are on the assumption that Germany won WWII with nuking New York and the US and other remaining countries surrendering and living under Nazi rule in 1960. Developed all by MachineGames and Published by Bethesda, these games have been extremely differerent and fun for me as I spend the most half of the year playing open world non linear games.

I will say that these games are extremely brutal and really deliver on what warfare, even with machines really mean. It is difficult, but intriguing.

You play as BJ Blazkowicz as you wake from a coma resulting from a failed assassination of secret Nazi Scientist, Strasse. You make a tough decision in the beginning which results on either two characters return later on to be a support character. BJ meets his soon to be lover Zophia whom nursed him while being out. The place that nursed him eventually were taken over and discontinued by the Nazis as all wounded and mentally ill patients are killed, but of course, not the legendary BJ Blazowicz who was thought to be dead. Zophia takes her to her family’s home and were shuttled to Berlin. BJ then finds and releases those imprisoned for being apart of a rebellion in Berlin, Germany which is now the capital of the world. BJ and co. start to fight back against the Nazis and end up even getting taking over one of their ships. You meet new characters such as Irene Engel and her lover whom you kill at the end of the game after severely witnessing the damaging sight of seeing her entire jaw ripped off by the Nazi’s own machines. You end up on the moon taking over some Nazi control and fight huge machines in London, England. You end up attacking and taking over now General Strasse’s compound and end up taking him out but with the potential demise of BJ.

The Old Blood takes place before the beginning of The New Order and basically takes the premise of BJ wanting all of it to be over with which is a huge theme in The New Order.

II: The New Colossus will be one of my favorite ever FPS games in history. It picks up right after The New Order as BJ is severely wounded and nearly ready to die. You really relive the horrific childhood and life BJ lived. He is also being hunted down by the Nazis known as Terror Billy. You end up working to take back the country about freedom, The USA! You end up in NYC post-nuked as BJ with his special suit keeping him alive. You go to a city to nuke a strategic base outside of Roswell, New Mexico by infiltrating as a Firefighter. I wont go too far in the story on this one, but the elements of story telling was amazing in this addition to the series.

Just gonna say, my favorite moments included taking out Engel & BJ’s dad in Wolfenstein II! Enough said, it felt too great to take down such an evil as the two!

I actually am excited to what comes next after YoungBlood with the Terror Twins (BJ and Zophia’s twin daughters) and see BJ take down Hitler! I loved these games and loved the music behind the games as well! 

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey + The Legacy of the First Blade & The Fate of Atlantis (2018, 2019, PS4)

This one took me the longest to complete this year as I went in as a completionist for the game. Ive always wanted to do that in my first try on one of the games in this amazing series! I loved Assassin’s Creed since it has come out and still loved the games that some people would say they did not like as much.  I enjoyed this one to the very end, even with the some of the best DLC’s I have ever purchased and played for a Single-Player story in gaming. The series has come a long way with this one being the first Game of the Year nomination nod in a long while! 

The game and the DLCs took me three months to complete with it being mostly the main game taking over two months and three weeks of traveling the entire map, getting all of the collectibles and completing all side quests which felt endless to me. The re imagining of Ancient Greece is done extremely well by the team at Ubisoft and it surprised me that an annual follow up to another favorite of mine in Assassin’s Creed: Origins could be this good! I really had to grind for this one as it just looked to beautiful to leave behind! 

There was just so much to do with this game with naval game play returning, traveling many distant lands doing side missions, taking out the mysterious Cult of Kosmos and headed to war for either Sparta or Athens, finding and fighting mythical creatures and collecting Pieces of Eden. 

In this game, you play either as Alexios & Kassandra in the game. Ubisoft is doing a very good job with female representation in gaming. You start as King Leonidas fighting the invading Persian Army on the deciding night of the Battle of 300 before many years later starting with whomever you chose in the beginning. The game comes with custom dialog in which the character can decide on the path of the story so if you want a happy ending, you better be careful with what you say. You start by being the known as Kefalonia’s Eagle Bearer mercenary after as a kid being thrown off of Greece’s tallest mountain near Sparta by your own father. You end up leaving the island of Kefalonia to take out the Wolf of Sparta in which was the same father that threw you off of the mountain when you were a child. You find out that it was all a setup and discovered the responsibility was that none other than a Pre-Templar Order, The Cult of Kosmos which were members of many across the country of Greece running the Pelopennesian War for their own gain and rule. It is led by the latter character and you end up trying to convince that he/she is being deceived by the Cult throughout the game. You also fight creatures of mythical stories in this game as well. The Legacy of the First Blade and The Fate of Atlantis were perfect ways of telling expansive stories for The Eagle Bearer post game.

There is just so much to say other than wow, this was the best investment I could have made if I wanted a game that could last a year if I wanted to do literally everything in it. I left behind somethings despite getting the Platinum trophy in the main game and almost all of the trophies in the story expansions. The game was amazing and extremely inclusive with the LGBTQ relationships or hetero relationships you were able to have in the game with specific NPCs. I love the things Ubisoft has been doing to make everyone feel included with their own stories. My favorite moment was completing the game. I felt like I was on an Odyssey with this one, no pun intended! I am definitely ready for the next one Ubisoft puts together! 

inFAMOUS Second Son (2014, PS4)

I was really anticipating to play this game eventually and was extremely excited to play this game as I was always interested in the inFAMOUS series. The game play is like a super-hero like game, but you have the choice to either be good or band and either side comes with its quirks or consequences. Developed by Sucker Punch Productions and released in 2014, the game came with well reception and is known to be extremely fun. 

Set in Seattle, WA, you play as Delsin where you start up north of Seattle causing a little bit of trouble applying graffiti to a sign of his own brother who is the deputy of the area they live in. A bus full of conduits full of special power escapes and Delsin is found out to have conduit abilities by absorbing these abilities by other conduits. He runs into a little bit of trouble with the leader of the D.U.P which are in charge of detaining and keeping conduits from public view as they find out most of his tribe is injured by her trying to get answers about Delsin which none spoke of him. The game is about getting Augustine’s powers in Seattle where the D.U.P has taken over and use it to heal the tribe. 

This game was incredible fun and I do not mean to reiterate, I had so much fun with all of the things the game had to offer and even completed most, if not, all side quests and activities in the map. I played Delsin honorable and got the Good Ending. My favorite moment in this game was holding Augustine Accountable and using the power for good.  The game was short but sweet and sometimes, I do wish there was more to what was given in the game. I know that Sucker Punch Production went in another directions post the development of this game with Ghost of Tsushima coming up for grabs in 2020, but I do hope to see another inFAMOUD game come up sometime soon.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Series (2008, 2010, 2013 & 2016, PS3/PS4)

I saw them all on sale right before I was going to start my completion run of Marvel’s Spider-Man and went on a detour from September 21st all the way to Halloween. The games all follow the entire story of Naruto in a fighting game style. I really enjoyed these games one-by-one and do hope another major Naruto release will come up someday! I loved the work Bandai-Namco did on these games and what they have been doing to games involved with major anime! 

Marvel’s Spider-Man & The City That Never Sleeps (2018, PS4)

Where do I even start? This game is near-perfection! I loved this game so much, I knew I had to play it again and was craving it during the summer while playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. This game has a beatiful build of New York City and imagining of a mature Peter Parker/SpiderMan. Designed & Developed by none other than Insomniac Games, the game delivers and has a story that really grabs you as a human being and a longtime Spider-Man fan! 

I am not entirely going to go off of the story on this one as it is much of anyone’s guess, but it is very touching and you have a mature Peter Parker where Spider-Man and his lives’ collides as he has to make difficult choices and finds out damning things of Norman Osborn who is the mayor of New York. 

But you do not just play as Peter, you play also as Mary Jane Watson and Miles Morales in a few stealth missions either getting supplies for Aunt May who is working for an organization that Martin Li / Mister Negative owns in NYC and MJ finding dirt that Mayor Osborn is behind and the discovery of what happens to Harry Osborne. 

This is a different type of Spider-Man that I have ever seen and am very curious to see what happens next in the next Spider-Man game! I loved this and achieved Platinum and played the City that Never Sleeps DLCs as well! 

Grand Theft Auto V & Online (2014, PS4)

Rockstar Games did it again in 2013 and again in 2014 with this rerelease of this masterpiece. Rockstar is very well known for their open world design and they never disapoint with their releases. This port includes first person mode and many other new features and content for the PS4 system. I remembered how much in depth they went compared to the PS3 version and it is a play again for the remainder of your life type of game. This is also the first game I will be breaking tradition as I move on to Death Stranding before the year ends as I chose to go on completion mode on this as I will be playing on select nights while Death Stranding has most of my attention. I beat the story, just collecting things and hitting those stung jumps and getting the Online Trophies which takes a lot of time. This is actually the second longest playthough of games this entire year, a little bit behind of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.

You play as three characters, Michael De Santa who is coming out of retirement and witness protection, Franklin Cliton former gangbanger looking to achieve bigger jobs and Trevor Phills well, is Trevor Phillips as the three aim to get the almight dollar in several heists around the state of San Andreas in Los Santos and the newly added Blaine County. Michael who ended up in witness protection from a deal with the FIB screwed up when he knocked down a multi-million dollar home owned by notorious Mexican Gangster, Martin Madrazo and has to pull a heist to get the money to take care of the funds for the house. Tagging Franklin along who is trying to up his career as a criminal, they succeed. Trevor who thinks Michael is dead finds out he is alive and pulling jobs in Los Santos and eventually meets Michael once again and they pull jobs together. Throughout all of the chaos, and after hiding out from Madrazo in which he scares away from the trio, Trevor finds out what really happened and despises Michael towards the end of the story for the last heist. The three do jobs for the government due to Michaels connection and do so until Michael deletes his data out of the system in a heist planned to help one of the corrupt members of the FIB. With that being done, the FIB have nothing on Michael but stand-off anyways because the government is the government. They eventually want Trevor dead, after Michael has dealings with billionaire investor, Devin Weston, it is requested to Franklin that Michael be taken out instead. It is up to the player. I always choice suicide in taking everyone out that the trio created problems for and ended with the three alive. Sorry for the out of order sypnosis here, just had a lot to go through in one game.

The story, the map and the many things you can do in this game is huge and I loved every second and every heist and ended up with billions of dollars between the three characters. So much to do I am still working on the games and am at 92-93 percent of completion.

GTA Online also is amazing and I have pulled many jobs and I have a lot of work to do there too. They even formulated it almost like the classic GTA III where your character is a mute but can talk if you have a mic. Heists, Jobs, Races and Deathmatches keeps GTA Online interesting even here in 2019. My favorite part was that sweet moment when you pull the last job and take out everyone that is your enemy. The end just had a good touch to the story if you do it that way. Killing Michael/Trevor feels just tragic.  The Gold Star system and the collectibles had me raging at times, but I would not have it any other way. 

This game will also go down as an all time great not only in the history of gaming as a game, but a revenue monster. Just past six years later and it is still in the top sales every month which is incredible! 

Death Stranding (2019, PS4)

I have always been curious about this game and am incredibly excited to start this one. Designed & Developed by Hideo Kojima and his newly formed Kojima Productions released a month ago, the mystery behind this game has me very curious and excited. The game was also developed in the same engine (Decima) as Horizon: Zero Dawn and just looks absolutely beautiful. I unfortunately never played Metal Gear back in my day so this will be the first Kojima title I will be playing so there is no bias here. 

The Future

I am so excited for gaming in the future seeing what is coming our way. The next-gen consoles are coming and it looks very promising. Very exciting titles such as The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, Watch Dogs Legion, Kingdom Hearts III ReMIND, Resident Evil 3 and much more are coming out this year. I regret not playing titles like Resident Evil 2’s remake and Devil May Cry 5 this year, but I know I can fit it in my schedule. Hopefully one day I can see a Call43 Studio game out there soon. Happy New Year Everyone! I hope gaming this decade will be just as exciting as it has been this decade.