Watch Dogs - Xbox One

It's been a busy few weeks here, but I have actually managed to fit in some game time! And for the past couple of weeks I've mostly been playing Watch Dogs, so I thought I'd pop by and give you my thoughts...

Watch Dogs was incredibly hyped last year, you couldn't hear mention of the next generation of consoles without someone citing Watch Dogs. It was earmarked from the beginning as the game to have on the next gen. It seems to have taken an age for it to be released, but when it came around we bought it, an early Fathers Day present for the other half (although I have actually played more of it!).

So firstly lets discuss the graphics. The intro video looks amazing, but I feel like after that some of it looks pretty shoddy. Aiden looks good, but the rest of the character models look pretty tired really, and don't really look like I thought the 'next-gen' would. Cars look good, buildings look good and the environment as a whole looks alright. But nothing special. Graphically it definitely doesn't blow me away.

A LOT of people have likened this game to Grand Theft Auto, something I find quite annoying. Why is it that when a game features an open world it is inevitably compared to either GTA or Skyrim? I don't see any similarity past the fact that they both occur in an open world city and feature cars and guns. Oh and a male protagonist, maybe I don't read enough into these things but for me this doesn't mean anything - MOST games feature a male protagonist yet we're not constantly comparing them. And lets be honest, the shooting in Watch Dogs is not so good. But thankfully we can be sneaky, which I believe is the way in which this game is supposed to be played. I'm not too far into the story yet, but I have been running around unlocking all of the ctOS towers and am yet to fire my gun.

The sneaking system in this game is fantastic. I love being able to press A on the next cover and Aiden will automatically dart there. It feels good, unlike the driving which I find incredibly arcade-y. There seems to be no logic to it, with the heavy vehicles being able to make corners neatly at speed, but the motorbikes mostly missing the corner and diving into a nearby wall instead. Which doesn't knock you off the bike, or even noticeably damage it.

The Fixer Contracts are a massive bone of contention for me. It feels like they cheapen the game a little, if only for just how many there are! Don't get me wrong I don't hate them quite as much as i first did, when on the first one I'd randomly chosen it turned out to be the hardest I have done so far and sits still unfinished.

This is far from an in-depth review, more just a little post collecting my initial thoughts. I'll probably post back with a proper one at some point in the future. But for now I'd say it's definitely worth getting. There still aren't enough games on the One in my opinion for you to be able to overlook this. The hacking is good and some of the phone calls you can hack into are hilarious, as well as some of the intrusion scenes. Don't take in all the hype, don't expect too much from it and above all just play it for a laugh and I believe you'll have a great experience with this game.

Next Gen

So what did you all plump for? I waited and waited and waited and never really knew which one to get. My heart for this gen was totally with Xbox 360 I adored my machine and spent many hours with it. PS3 never really floated my boat, some of the games were AMAZING - Heavy Rain and The Last of Us I'm looking at you - but I felt like I was constantly battling with the interface and controller.

As any of you that read my musings on the Xbox One at the time will know I wasn't particularly impressed with either at the time. But as I researched them more I started to lean more towards the PS4, much to my partner's disgust - he is and always will be a Microsoft fanboy and literally recoils at the sight of me on my Macbook - but that system just seemed to be aimed more towards the gamers.

We left it for awhile and for a good while it was easy to ignore the next gen. The friends we had who had preordered the Xbox One (interestingly we had none that had preordered the PS4) liked it enough but didn't really rave about it. They had all kept their 360, a console we still have plenty of games left to play, for instance I STILL have not completed Skyrim, despite being 150 hours in...I just love exploring a little too much. We didn't feel like we were missing out at all really.

Christmas came and went, we got our children's birthdays out of the way and then it was getting closer and closer to the release date of Watch Dogs. Yes it was coming out on the last gen too, but who really wants to buy a new game on an old console?

So we finally plumped for...

The Xbox One. I know, I know. I HATED it at last years E3, but after waiting awhile it became more and more apparent that, for us, for our gaming preferences it HAD to be the One. The exclusives, the promise of future releases and above all the games currently available on it swung it for us. So now we have a One proudly sat underneath the TV next to its older (and more loved) brother.

It is good. Not mind-blowing, and certainly not game-changing yet. Maybe it will be in the future, but for now, for me at least it's a means to an end. I needed it to play Watch Dogs, Plants vs Zombies split screen and RYSE. But it's not earned my heart yet.

I'll be posting some opinions on the games I've been playing recently in due course.

Keep Gaming!
xXx

I can't seem to drop this...

Since I last posted here, with my hastily written goodbye, I have done nothing but think of the fond memories I have of this blog. I LOVED IT! It was like my third baby, albeit a very neglected one! But my goodbye came at a time where I just found myself floundering, I guess I was kinda struggling with my online identity. I'm a mother, a baker, a crafter and a gamer (amongst many other things!) and these things don't necessarily go hand in hand online.

So when I decided to close this account, it was under the proviso that I would set up a new blog that would marry all the things that make me me under one virtual roof. But as alluded to above, these things just wouldn't work together. Can you imagine, my dear gamers, being forced to read a new recipe I'd found, or a DRESS pattern. Eurgh. So that blog then fell by the wayside too, as I felt unable to put my readers through that torment.

As some of you may know, I have finished my English degree and I am now throwing myself into gaining a career in teaching, BUT my dream, my passion has always been and will always be writing.  And I miss this blog so much...and I've had a few people, I admit not many, but a few telling me they miss it.

SO my new idea is this...

I'm thinking of bringing this blog back. Mostly just for the joy of it for me, so it'll be a little less structured, a little more opinion based, and just a little less time consuming. And to fill my need to blog abut my family life I'll start a separate one for anyone who wants to read it!

Does that sound ok?

Like I said in my goodbye post, I'm always floating about on Twitter, and still available at the danniekittengaming@gmaildotcom email address. In short I'm here for any chats you want to include me in. But from now on I'm going to be talking at you again on here.

I'm hoping to do this justice, I may not see the same readership as I did before but that's ok. I game because I love it and I write because I love it. So read it if you want to. But for me it just feels good to be home.

Time to say Goodbye

It is with deep regret that I announce that this blog will not be continuing. After finishing my degree in January I hoped to bring this blog back to what it was, but unfortunately life has a way of getting in they way. Before I knew it it had been months since I'd shown this blog any attention and I just feel like I can't do it justice any longer.

I will still be around, and playing as many games as my life allows, so you can always ask me for opinions, over on my twitter account (@DannieKitten). I'm going to be setting up a new blog, that will be less structured than this one. It will revolve around various projects and goals in my life, and will most likely still mention the video games I'm enjoying at that time.

I have found over my time blogging about games, on this and other sites, that I neglected my own personal game time, the downtime that I so need after a day of studying and bringing up my kids. I can no longer play games just with the view of reviewing them. I want to go back to enjoying my game time, and I hope you can all understand this.

Thanks for reading!

Thoughts on the Xbox One

Now I want to make it clear from the outset that I have never really considered myself a 'fangirl' of any of the consoles. I have owned most of them since I began gaming and can honestly say that the only thing that has ever made me favour one console over another is if that console SUITED my needs better. For example, when I asked for a GameCube for my birthday one year, it was mainly because my brother already had the PS2 and I knew I wouldn't be allowed online on the Xbox.

The GameCube was the first console bought solely for me and I adored it. A couple of years later I owned my own PS2 and Xbox, but really for me at the time GameCube had my heart, followed closely by the PS2. When the next gen was released I went straight to Xbox 360 and have never looked back. I purchased a Wii a little later, for something a bit different and finally a PS3 when I had more money than sense.

I can honestly say that, whilst I don't regret buying the PS3 I do feel it has been mistreated in my house, it has never been, and will never be our primary games console. It has been used for PS3 exclusives and Bluray and that is about it. Until I bought Ni No Kuni last month I don't think I had played a game on it since Heavy Rain. I hate the long drawn out updates (that it seems to need everytime I turn the damn thing on!) I dislike how cheap and flimsy the controller feels. In short, there isn't actually much I enjoy about the PS3 as a games console.

The Xbox 360 was (and still is) the gaming console for me. It suits me well. It has a vast array of games that can cater to any of my whims. I have a huge game collection for it, including over 300 XBLA and XBLIG titles. I love the controller. I love my special Gears console. I love the background updates.

But recently it has been clear where Microsoft are going. Slowly but surely more and more useless junk has been spreading onto my 360. Sky, which I don't care about. Facebook, which we all have on our phone. Mounds of apps that mostly do the same bloody thing. ADVERTS ON THE DASH - that was a real joy-killer. And the death of Inside Xbox and SentUAMessage, seemed like the final death knoll. But I stuck by my machine - after all I have no issues with it as a games console, which is all I wnat it to be.

So when they announced the Xbox One I didn't get that excited. I sat with baited breath and watched the reveal on my 360. And even though my expectations hadn't actually been that high, I finished watching it feeling deflated.

TV, TV, TV, TV, Television, TV, TV. It was heard a ridiculous amount of times during the unveiling of a GAMES console. What made it worse was that a lot of the 'features' seem to be for our cousins on the other side of the pond. I guess we'll see. But for a long while the USA have had more varied apps and features than us poor Brits and the Xbox One seems to be carrying on that trend.

Then they announced the very controversial DRM. Now I have to admit that whilst it irked me a little it didn't pee me off to the extent it has others. I rarely buy second hand games so at first I struggled to understand how it would affect me. But I really disliked the control they are trying to assert over us, their loyal fans. It seemed like a slap in the face.

At the minute we have two Xbox 360's, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. It seems natural that we would probably do the same with the next gen, but now we're not so sure. From what I understand, anyone on the same console the disc was installed to can play it, which is fine. But what about if we do own two? Would one us then not be able to play any games on the other Xbox One?

For me there are too many questions about the next gen. I will not be pre-ordering either of the next gen. I will wait and see what happens and wait for them to clarify some points. What I saw didn't excite me enough for me to throw my chips in with either Sony or Microsoft to be honest.

Sony have said they will not be using DRM, but for me this is just as worrying. They did say first party games will be DRM-free which is fine. But surely they should just be upfront and admit that, because of Xbox One's stance on it, the publishers now have them over a barrel. If Sony won't allow the publishers to use DRM than Sony will probably not be getting as many games as Xbox One.

I guess we'll see what happens. Bt I have to admit to be being worried about the future of gaming. It could be amazing, but for now I'm on the fence.

HELLO!

Well to say the past few months have been mad is an understatement. Thank God for Summer Breaks! (Although we seem to be devoid of any Summer here in Manchester!)

So as any regular readers will be aware I have been on hiatus for a little while whilst I struggled to balance work, home and studying with this here little blog. It was far too much of a struggle to keep things running whilst attending University, a million and one appointments and the rest of the everyday stuff us mums have to do. But now I can return! Well at least every so often for the foreseeable future.

I have barely had time to game the past few months whilst I ironed out the minutiae of my dissertation proposal but it is now underway (barely) so I can return for a little me time, yay!

SO I have LOADS of reviews incoming for you! Some are from before my little hiatus so may feel a little out of date, but if you have been holding off on buying the reviews may serve as a little reminder for you. Thankfully some lovely developers have not forgotten me and I have some new games to review too! I will also be throwing out some opinion pieces in the games I have played just for fun in my rare downtime these last few months.

We have SO much to catch up on! What were your thoughts on E3? Are you going to purchase the Xbox One? Have you already pre-ordered? What have been your gaming highlights so far this year? I'll be giving you my opinions in a little while!

Thanks for reading xXx

Keeping you in the Loop...

Hi Everyone!

I was just gonna tweet a quick explanation but then I realised it'd be a pretty big series of tweets so I may as well do it here...

The blog has dwindled somewhat these past weeks due to a number of reasons. Don't worry I haven't forgotten about you! As you may know I am a mum and a full time student. Last weekend was my sons fourth birthday and January saw me enter the final year of my degree. Dissertation time.

So while I jostle with all my University work this blog will probably only be updated at weekend. If I get the time in the week I will post too, but for now it's better to only expect reviews on weekend, at least for the next few weeks.

Don't worry though, once I get back into the swing of things and have finalised my dissertation proposal things should even out a little!

Thanks for sticking with me guys :)