Category: PC

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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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

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

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?

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

The Amazing Open World and Lackluster Narrative of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is the greatest action-stealth game I’ve ever played. Every aspect of the gameplay in Hideo Kojima’s farewell to the series he’s been heading up for over 25 years is tight, responsive and open to wild degrees of experimentation. So often in Metal Gear Solid 5 you’ll think up some crazy way to test the game’s systems and more often than not it will work. Extract yourself out of a hot zone by holding on to a fulton balloon on top of a shipping container? Want to use the tape of someone pooping to stop soldiers from investigating the outhouse you’re hiding in? Go for it.

The beauty of Metal Gear Solid 5’s gameplay is that nearly everyone will have a different story to tell about how they engaged with a certain mission or took down a base. This is the best feeling Metal Gear game to play by a large margin. Gone are the archaic controls and the contorted claw shapes you would have to twist your hand into to do something simple like aiming down a weapon’s sights. When you are in the open world of Afghanistan or central Africa, you really feel like you can make the legend of Big Boss come to life. Continue reading The Amazing Open World and Lackluster Narrative of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Reply All Talks to the Creators of That Dragon, Cancer

For the uninitiated, That Dragon, Cancer is a small game developed by Ryan and Amy Green (with the help of numerous other developers and artists) about their experience with raising their son who was diagnosed with cancer when he was one year old.

With That Dragon, Cancer coming out today, January 12, the podcast covering all things Internet, Reply All, talked to Ryan and Amy about the development of the game. I haven’t listened to it personally because I don’t think I have the emotional fortitude but I have been told by a fellow GamerSushi editor that this interview moved him to tears several times.

If you’re interested in learning more about That Dragon, Cancer, you can click the underlined words to be taken to their website. For more Reply All, click here.

What Games Are You Looking Forward to in 2016?

All things considered, 2015 was a banner year for games. Granted I say this because last year let me play not one but two new Assassin’s Creed games (Rogue was released on the PC in March) so I consider that a mark of success by any metric.

Now that we’re speeding into 2016, I was wondering what is on your radar for the coming months. I’m also looking at producing some video content, so I’d be interested to know what games you’d like to see more of in that regard.

January already offers some tasty morsels with Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam for the 3DS and the PC release of Tomb Raider coming in pretty quick succession on January 22 and 29, respectively. Things don’t slow down after that as XCOM 2 comes out on February 5 and The Division (maybe) hitting in March.

Those are just the big titles on the horizon though and I’m sure there are dozens of smaller games that I’ve neglected to mention. What are you folks looking out for? Any games you’d like to recommend to your fellow Sushians to put on their wishlists?

GamerSushi Asks: What Are You Playing?

It’s a question as old as time: what have you been playing recently?

As it has been quite a while since we’ve asked you this question, I imagine most of you have quite the backlog, but for the sake of our fingers I’m going to just stick to the last few months.

The number one game taking up my time is Destiny: The Taken King. On a weekly basis you can find me looking for pick-up-groups to do the King’s Fall raid on Hard Mode with the associated challenges. Bungie massively improved Destiny with their large year two expansion and it got the entire GS crew (sans Jeff) back into the game hard for a few months.

Bungie sadly hasn’t followed up the momentum Taken King gave them and the messaging is that Destiny is in a bit of a holding pattern with maybe one or two interesting content additions coming in 2016 (scuttlebutt says Destiny 2 is a Fall title). Even though Destiny is spinning its wheels a bit, it’s still got its hooks in me.

Other than that I picked up a large number of games over the Steam Winter Sale with Total War: Rome 2 proving to be very engaging. I’ve also been playing a few rounds of Battlefield 4 here and there, but I bet you guessed that already.

So what have you been playing recently? Any under-the-radar games you want to recommend or big AAA titles you want to leave your thoughts on? Sound off below!

Rise of the Tomb Raider Coming to PC on January 28

Rejoice, PC owners waiting to undertake Lara Croft’s new Crystal Dynamics developed adventure! According to a press release, Rise of the Tomb Raider will release for PC on Steam and Windows 10 (don’t worry it will still work on Windows 7) on January 28.

The Witcher 3 and Other Games That Didn’t Grab You

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is, by many people’s reckoning, the greatest game that was put out in 2015. It has won hundreds of Game of the Year awards and is hailed as a technical achievement and the exemplary model of how to handle post-release content and patching. But even with all of its clout it just couldn’t grab me.

This is the first Witcher game I’ve played in earnest, having not played the original game and putting just a token effort into two. I’d clock my Witcher 3 playtime at around 15 hours but that’s just an estimate.

I hunted monsters, flirted with Geralt’s past lovers and met the Bloody Baron and the Crones, both of whom were engrossing for different reasons. I love the world that CD Projekt Redhas realized with the Witcher but I could tell even early on that the story was going to do some major wheel spinning and the combat wasn’t varied enough to grab me. Continue reading The Witcher 3 and Other Games That Didn’t Grab You

Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth Expansion is the Only DLC I’ll Ever Need

battlefield 4 dragons teeth

Yes, my legendary love/hate affair with Battlefield 4 continues. The newest installment of this on-going saga has to do with Dragon’s Teeth, the latest expansion pack that dropped yesterday for Premium members.

An infantry-focused map pack taking place in urban settings in several Asian cities, Dragon’s Teeth removes a lot of the things I don’t like about Battlefield 4, such as almost every type of vehicle, but leaves in all the sweet on-foot action you can handle. The maps are somewhere between the regular size for BF4 maps and the cramped Close Quarters DLC for Battlefield 3, meaning that a lot of the running and dying between objectives has been removed. Continue reading Battlefield 4 Dragon’s Teeth Expansion is the Only DLC I’ll Ever Need

The Visible, Violent Deaths of Sniper Elite 3

sniper elite 3

Over the weekend I put a decent amount of time into Sniper Elite 3, Rebellion’s latest foray into the realm of shooting a lot of Nazis (and Italian soldiers!) in the face and testicles in slow motion, and I have to say I’m digging it quite a bit.

I’d describe Sniper Elite 3 as a “rough diamond” of sorts. The folks at Rebellion have done a great job of making a fun stealth title and if you like sniping then this is definitely the game for you. Just be aware that there are a few hiccups that might detract from your experience. Continue reading The Visible, Violent Deaths of Sniper Elite 3

Celebrate the Fourth of July With a Battlefield 4 CTE Easter Egg

I don’t need to remind you what today is because I think we all know. It’s three days after Canada Day!

Naw, just kidding: it’s Independence Day, the day where the USA celebrates their victory over the British and their freedom from the monarchy which is a feat they accomplished all by themselves and not with the help of the French, no sir.

To commemorate this occasion, the team at DICE LA who are behind the Battlefield 4 Community Test Environment (CTE), which has fixed more bugs in BF4 in a few months than DICE proper fixed in almost eight, added a very special easter egg in their most recent patch. Professional Battlefield 4 sleuth JackFrags (who found the Megalodon in Naval Strike as well) shows off the Fourth of July celebrations added to the map Dawnbreaker:

Pretty cool little Easter Egg from DICE LA in the Battlefield 4 CTE there, I must say. I think the CTE has done great things for Battlefield 4, the “netcode” update being chief among them. I signed up for CTE but haven’t had a chance to try it yet. I hope all of our American Sushians have an excellent Fourth of July!

Review: Watch Dogs

watch dogs review

Nothing screamed “the next gen is here” more than Ubisoft’s E3 2012 stage reveal of Watch Dogs. The PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One weren’t even revealed yet, but everyone knew what Watch Dogs was heralding when Ubisoft showed it off for the first time.

Two years and one delay later, we finally get to hack the mean streets of Chicago. Is Watch Dogs a next gen standard bearer or does it barely straddle the line between the last generation and this one? Continue reading Review: Watch Dogs