The GamerSushi Show, Ep 95: Super Sushian Odyssey

Oh, hey. Didn’t see you there. Been a while, huh?

Yes, after our much publicized return, the GamerSushi crew managed to churn out exactly one podcast before going on yet another unintended two year long hiatus. What can we say, turns out that writing and casting about games on a weekly basis as a hobby gets really difficult when you’re five grown men, two of whom have children.

In the past year, however, we’ve had some incredible (and not so incredible) games drop on us, including a stunning return to form for Nintendo who released not only an awesome system but perhaps the most defining games in two of their flagship series. Naturally the Nintendo Switch dominates the front half of the podcast along with discussions about Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey.

We also talk about this year’s breakout hit PLAYERUNKNOWN’s Battlegrounds as well as guess which games in 2018 will be getting their own battle royale mode. There’s some discussion on the most disappointing games of the last year as well as our personal Game of the Year for 2017. Despite what some people might say, Sonic Mania is totally a good game.

When will we be back? Who knows, we do want to get to episode 100 eventually so we might be tickling your ear holes again soon when there’s something to talk about. Since it’s been a while remember to rate and review and we’ll see you all again soon.

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Firewatch Promises, but Doesn’t Follow Through

I bought Firewatch a few months ago when it went on sale. I’d been really looking forward to the game before it came out because I loved all of the promotional art, and I was hoping that it might deliver a gaming experience that matched that obviously high level of design.

However, the initial reviews were a bit lukewarm, so I didn’t pick it up immediately when it came out. When I did finally buy it, it sat on my PS4 unplayed for a few months because I have more games than I have time to play them. (This is also true about books, movies and TV shows, much to my annoyance; if I could freeze time, I’d use my powers to catch up on pop culture.)

I finally played through the game a few weeks ago, and I can definitely see why the reactions were so mixed. It’s gorgeous to look at, and it’s am ambitious hybrid of storytelling and interaction, but unfortunately all of that good work is undermined by flawed storytelling. I’m going to go into nitty-gritty spoilers here, so if you care about such things, now is the time to stop reading. Continue reading Firewatch Promises, but Doesn’t Follow Through

The Division Delivers But Only in Fits and Starts

Tom Clancy’s The Division, a game about American sleeper agents taking back New York after a brutal viral outbreak, released at the beginning of March after one of the most prolonged hype cycles in recent memory. I’ve played a decent amount of the Division, completed the story and found every single collectible (all 290 something of them). I’ve fought tons of bullet sponge enemies and spent minutes scratch my head over whether some gear is better than others thanks to the somewhat impenetrable item stats.

The Division is getting a significant patch next week that is adding an end-game activity called Incursions and bringing in sweeping changes to loot, crafting and a whole bunch of other stuff. This impression covers everything pre-patch and some of my feedback might be addressed come release, but this is what I thought of The Division during the first month of its life. Continue reading The Division Delivers But Only in Fits and Starts

Destiny’s April Update and Why Sterling Treasure Boxes Are No Big Deal

After months of waiting, Bungie is dropping a sizable content update for Destiny next week in the form of the April Update which features a new Strike and updated Taken versions of the Winter’s Run Strike and the Prison of Elders. It also brings in new armor, gear, some customization for said armor and gear in the form of “Chroma” and a Light level increase to 335 (from 320).

To earn some of that gear, you’ll need to get one of the new Sterling Treasure boxes. You can acquire three of these by playing the new Level 41 Prison of Elders, one round of the weekly Crucible playlist and logging in on the weekly reset. Aside from the three boxes you can earn just by playing, you can also buy Sterling Treasures from Eververse, the microstransaction store at the Tower. This last source of the new hotness is giving the Destiny community a bit of pause. Continue reading Destiny’s April Update and Why Sterling Treasure Boxes Are No Big Deal

Sunset Overdrive Scratches That Saints Row Itch

Sunset Overdrive definitely wasn’t on my radar when I bought an Xbox One. I vaguely remember seeing ads for the game when it first came out, but forgot about it almost immediately.

That all changed a few weeks ago when I heard rumblings that Sunset Overdrive was actually a pretty great game. Around that same time, Amazon put it on sale for $15, and you can guess the rest. A few days later I had it in my hot little hands.

If you’re a long-time reader of this site, you may remember how much Saints Row 3 surprised and delighted me when I finally got around to playing it. Sunset Overdrive gave me that feeling all over again. It’s in the same absurdist action-comedy wheelhouse, and it feels fresher than the fourth Saints Row game.

Continue reading Sunset Overdrive Scratches That Saints Row Itch

The Reaction to Assassin’s Creed Artwork in Uncharted 4’s New Trailer Was Blown Way Out of Proportion

In the wee hours of this morning, a new trailer for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End dropped and during one section of the trailer, series protagonist and half-tuck advocate Nathan Drake glances at a framed print of…Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag concept art.

Yes, the upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive has a piece of concept art from an entirely different game series in its trailer. Honest mistake? Homage? Continue reading The Reaction to Assassin’s Creed Artwork in Uncharted 4’s New Trailer Was Blown Way Out of Proportion

The GamerSushi Show, Ep 94: Peak Sush

Kept you waiting, huh?

It’s true, your eyes are not deceiving you…the GamerSushi Show is back with its long awaited 94th installment. The lives of the GS editors (and special guest Eddy) finally had a night we could all get free for casting, so we fired up the mics, went through three different calling software services and talked about what we’ve missed since our last show.

There’s a brief recap of some news like the Assassin’s Creed delay and then we talk about Destiny: The Taken King, Firewatch and Metal Gear Solid 5, among other things.

It has been a while, so here’s how it goes: listen, rate and give prayer to the great gods of Askarn that we will return before too long. Thanks for listening!

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Talking Up a Storm in Firewatch

When faced with adversity, most of us would like to imagine that we would face our problems head on and confront them. In reality though, the most appealing path is to get as far away from your issues as possible and hope that the distance means you won’t have to deal with it, at least for a little while.

This is the case in Firewatch, a first person adventure mystery game from Campo Santo. In the Summer of 1989, playable character Henry takes a temporary job as a fire lookout in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming, far away from civilization and his own personal hangups back in Colorado. Continue reading Talking Up a Storm in Firewatch

Helldivers is Hardcore Co-op Action

For you PlayStation Plus owners out there, Helldivers is available for free this month. The GamerSushi crew, plus a friend of Eddy’s, checked it out last night and an awesome time was had by all.

If you are not familiar with Helldivers, it’s a top down twin stick shooter where you play as the eponymous soldiers who are dropped onto various planets to wipe out the alien races for the glory of Super Earth. The game has a very tongue in cheek sense of humor; when you kill aliens, your person shouts things like “HAVE SOME DEMOCRACY!”. If you’ve seen Starship Troopers, then you’re familiar with the kind of milieu this game is going for. Continue reading Helldivers is Hardcore Co-op Action

Ubisoft Announces That Assassin’s Creed Will Have No New Game in 2016

It feels like one of the collective wishes of the Internet has been granted today as Ubisoft announced, hot on the heels of the release of the refreshingly good Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and ahead of the motion picture adaptation, that Assassin’s Creed will not have a new game in 2016.

In a blog post titled “A Message from the Assassin’s Creed team“, Ubisoft talks about how after the release of 2014’s less than critically acclaimed Unity the team wanted to step back from their schedule and reexamine the development pipeline for the series. Continue reading Ubisoft Announces That Assassin’s Creed Will Have No New Game in 2016

Anthony’s Top Ten Games of 2015

Better late than never right?

I always wait to finish playing the games from 2015 that I plan on playing, which means I have to wait til after Christmas since I always save a few games to get as gifts. But now I am done and ready to unleash my list, so without further ado, here are my top ten games of 2015: Continue reading Anthony’s Top Ten Games of 2015

Having Trouble Finding the Fun in XCOM 2

Over the weekend I’ve played a generous amount of XCOM 2, and I’ve also restarted after 10 hours into my first playthrough. I’ve named soldiers, customized them and watched the die to hilariously biased random number generation (RNG) and pulled off more than a few clutch victories. But for all of that, I’m just not enjoying my time with XCOM 2 all that much.

20 years after the events of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, in which the alien invasion was successful, you and your ragtag band of resistance fighters are striking back against the extraterrestrial overlords that control Earth. XCOM 2 flips the formula a bit by making you the invading force and you start most missions with a concealment bonus. You can actually plot ambushes this time, a welcome change from the free move the aliens would get when you encountered them in the first game. Continue reading Having Trouble Finding the Fun in XCOM 2

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a Great PC Port if You Have the Rig for It

A mere three months after its exclusive Xbox One release, Rise of the Tomb Raider has arrived on the PC bringing the rebooted Lara Croft’s mass-murdering rampages to PC players everywhere.

On the scale of PC ports from Arkham Knight to Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, Rise of the Tomb Raider falls closer to the latter, but it still requires a beefy rig to get the most out of it. The minimum requirements are pretty forgiving (i3 or equivilant, 2GB GPU) aside from the 6GB of RAM, which is quite the ask for most builds. For reference, I’m running an i7-2770k, 16GB of RAM and a 4GB GTX 980. Despite the taxing nature of the game I ran it on the highest quality with nary a dip below 60 fps aside from a couple areas at the end when everything was popping off – fire, lighting, multiple enemies, collapsing geometry, you name it. Continue reading Rise of the Tomb Raider is a Great PC Port if You Have the Rig for It

Testing the Division Beta on PC

This past weekend the Division beta finally gave us a glimpse into the long-gestating title that Massive has been working on. The hype train for The Division has been a long and strange one and it felt good to finally get my hands on the game.

While the beta was fairly limited to one mission and the Dark Zone, I had an awesome time taking on the gangs throughout New York and going rogue against others agents to steal their loot. I played on PC and the game was fairly well optimized for a Ubisoft-published title. While there was some concerns about the “bullet-sponge” nature of the enemies from pre-beta impressions, I didn’t really notice it too much at the time. Continue reading Testing the Division Beta on PC

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate is a Great Return to Form

Assassin’s Creed is the gaming world’s whipping boy for the case against annualized releases. While Call of Duty pulls this trick as well, the sheer scale of an Assassin’s Creed game means that the stress fractures brought on by a quick turn-around are more readily apparent.

Last year’s Unity could be seen as the tipping point in the series. With a buggy launch and a poor reception, despite its decent co-op mode, Unity left the series balancing more closely to irrelevance than ever. Ubisoft needed to right the ship with the follow-up title, and thankfully Syndicate was the shot in the arm Assassin’s Creed needed. Continue reading Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate is a Great Return to Form

Star Wars Battlefront is Gorgeous Fan Service, But Not Much Else

Ever since EA and Disney announced their partnership to bring more Star Wars games to the market a Battlefront reboot helmed by DICE, the developers of the Battlefield series, was inevitable. The pre-release material showed us all the right stuff: gorgeously rendered Stormtroopers and Rebels mixing it up in iconic locations with tantalizing glimpses at the famous heroes, villains and starships thrown in for good measure. Now that Battlefront has been out for a while, how has this seemingly killer formula measured up?

There’s no getting around it: Star Wars Battlefront is quite possibly the best looking and sounding game I’ve ever played. With no last-gen version to hold it back, DICE went all out on recreating assets from the original trilogy down to the smallest scratch of paint on the X-Wings. DICE leaned heavily into their location research and promotional shots of the material they got from LucasArts as part of their marketing and their dedication to capturing the look and feel of the first three movies paid dividends. Continue reading Star Wars Battlefront is Gorgeous Fan Service, But Not Much Else

GamerSushi Asks: Why Do You Like The Witcher 3?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is not a good game.

I know many people loved it. I know many publications honored it. I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

I know the story and writing is allegedly superb. But when the actual gameplay, the act of moving and fighting with Geralt, is a joyless slog (some would say “digital gulag”), that content feels like a tantalizing treasure surrounded by a moat of shit with nary a boat or bridge in sight.

Now, my language is harsh, but that’s for two reasons; the first, is that I am being purposefully hyperbolic for the sake of comedy. I want you to read this and laugh, enjoying the act of my taking a popular darling out back and giving it the Old Yeller treatment. The second reason is that The Witcher 3 really, really, really, really, really, really sucks. Continue reading GamerSushi Asks: Why Do You Like The Witcher 3?

Watch 50 Minutes of The Division Gameplay Because You Know You Want To

Youtuber JackFrags (along with a bunch of other YouTube channels and outlets except for us and Kotaku) visited Ubisoft recently to get a peek at the long-in-development Tom Clancy third-person shooter RPG hybrid The Division. A lot of the videos that made their way to the Internet last week were short and had voice-overs, but JackFrags put up 50 minutes of commentary-free footage featuring some co-op mission action and Dark Zone shenanigans. The footage was recorded on Xbox One, for reference. Watch the embedded video below if you want to know more:

My hype level for the Division has been steadily climbing since the previews started hitting. I’ve seen some complaints about the “bullet sponge” nature of the enemies, but it makes sense if you think about it as an RPG first rather than a twitch-based shooter. I’m in the beta that will be hitting the PC at the end of January so I’ll most likely be streaming the game for anyone interested.

Who else is riding that Division hype train? Anyone on the fence?

Source – JackFrags’ YouTube channel

Destiny: The Taken King Took Us By Surprise

The Darkness was winning.

Mitch, weary of the grind, traded in his copy of Destiny. After the lackluster experience of The Dark Below, Eddy traded his in, as well. It was a fun experiment that gripped us tighter than any game in recent memory, but it seemed like its time had passed.

I alone persisted, putting it aside for a time, but waiting for The House of Wolves expansion. It was good, much better than The Dark Below, but without my Fireteam, it was harder and harder to get a group to experience any worthwhile content, the eternal cross that Destiny bears to this day. I had a bit of luck with r/Fireteams on Reddit, but too many bad experiences with trolls and jerks soured me on the whole thing. I put Destiny aside again, not trading it in, but with the intent to do so if The Taken King didn’t blow me away. Continue reading Destiny: The Taken King Took Us By Surprise

Heading Back Into The Wasteland in Fallout 4

To use an analogy that is perhaps a bit staid by this point, playing Fallout 4 is like eating your favorite dish for the hundredth time. It’s still filling and satisfying in its own way, but has lost some of the magic it once had.

Don’t get me wrong, Fallout 4 is not a bad game; I’ve put around 40 hours into my adventures in the Commonwealth and I’ll more than likely be close to double that by the time I’m done. Even though Fallout 4 hews closely to the established Bethesda formula, there’s a reason it works so damn well. Continue reading Heading Back Into The Wasteland in Fallout 4