Dragon Age: Inquisition Review

*Reviewed for the PS4

Dragon Age: Inquisition is the most expansive RPG I've played in years and it's become my personal favorite out of the trilogy. BioWare has outdone themselves in filling Thedas with things to do. I clocked in 14 hours in the first two days that I owned the game and if it weren't for school I would've kept going. Inquisition takes things from both Origins and Dragon Age II and perfects them in terms of gameplay, graphics, storyline, quests, and expansiveness. All the Dragon Age lore is here, but the nice thing is that Inquisition does a good job of filling you in on what you missed if you didn't play the first two games or have very limited knowledge of the world. It's a fantastic RPG, so lets break it down.

The storyline is simple, kinda. There's been a Breach from the Fade in Ferelden and your character is tasked with forming the Inquisition, gaining support, and closing the Breach. In the beginning you are left with a mark on your left hand from the Breach capable of closing rifts throughout the world. The Breach is unleashing demonic forces from the Fade all over the country and the Templars blame the Mages and the Mages blame the Templars. It's weird, it sounds confusing but once you start playing it's rather simple. Dragon Age is ripe with political strife in it's stories and the choices you make/the people you support impact the outcome. As per each Dragon Age came you have to travel about the country gaining support for your team, in this case the Inquisition, and collecting followers. It's an interesting story with a scary antagonist, classic fantasy elements are in play but they all work together. It's a good story, not altogether amazing, but good. Ancient enemy intent on world domination, sound familiar?

The war table

Dragon Age's character creation is very in depth. There are four races: Human, Elf, Qunari, and Dwarf. You get to pick from three classes: Warrior, Mage and Rogue. After picking one of each, the game gives you a small background story based on your choices and then lets you start modeling your character's face and voice. Literally anything you can think of that you might want to edit or create for your character is here in the customization. It's the most in depth character creation screen I have ever encountered. Each class has four different trees to choose abilities from. I picked a Warrior on this first playthrough. The abilities allow you customize how they perform in combat like what special moves they have or if you're a mage what spells you can cast. At around level 10 in the story you get to undertake a quest to choose a specialization. Warrior's can choose from Templar, Champion, or Reaver. What class specialization you pick determines how you perform in combat. Templar boots the entire party defense/damage. Champion boosts your own defense essentially making you a full tank, and Reaver allows you to do massive amounts of damage as your health decreases. I love the customization of this game. No complaints here.

Gameplay and specifically combat is awesome. I will say that this style of RPG combat doesn't appeal to everyone. This is not a fighting game. This is not The Elder Scrolls. Dragon Age is more tactical. Dragon Age: Inquisition's combat is a mix between Origins and Dragon Age: II. It has the tactical auto-attack side of Origins mixed with the "button smashing" of Dragon Age: II. It's fast paced and fun. Using your party to combine devastating attacks between melee characters(warrior, rouge) and your mages is extremely rewarding. The game presents you with four difficulty levels at the start and playing on Normal presents a steady challenge throughout the entirety of the game. There are certain areas of the game that will be a higher level than you, requiring you to grind for a bit and then return. The difficulty can be changed at any time however. I find that the process of leveling up takes a bit longer than it should. Too much XP is required to get to the next level which frustrated me, but it makes it that much more rewarding when you do finally level up. One thing that is required for most story missions is Power. A resource you gain by completing side quests, managing the Inquisition war table, closing fade rifts, and other stuff. Certain missions require Power points of up to 20 whereas some only require 1. It's a unique system that relates everything you do back to the main questline.

I always felt like everything I did in the game held a purpose, nothing was meaningless. Even quests that seemed like a "fetch quest" or a kill order usually related to the main story somehow. The quests are rewarding and they lead you to new areas to explore like hidden ruins or temples. One of my favorite things is how Inquisition still calls back the things you did in the previous games. There are consistent references to the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall. If you have an Origin account and have played the first two games you can upload that data so that the world starts out how you molded it in Dragon Age 1 and 2. A cool feature for avid players of the series, but it's not an issue if you don't have that. But I highly recommend reading up on Dragon Age lore and the events that happened in the first few games. IGN did a Dragon Age in 5 minutes video which you can see here.

The Loot system in this game works quite well along with crafting armor and weapons. To craft weapons and armor you have to find schematics throughout the world, usually found on dead enemies or loot chests. BioWare has really outdone themselves with things to do in this world they've been creating since Dragon Age Origins. I spent a good six hours exploring the first open sandbox that your character reaches. And unlike Origins or Dragon Age: II, these areas are massive. there isn't any main path you follow like in Fable or anything, it's more similar to Elder Scrolls where if you see a mountain in the distance, you can probably go climb that mountain. Animals are also running around everywhere and hunting has become an important part of the game, if you wish to modify or upgrade your weapons and armor with the leather that animal hides give you. There are so many side quests in each area that at times it can almost be overwhelming. When I started to feel that way I just abandoned all my quests and went exploring to see what I could find, usually I found more side quests. It's hard to pack in everything in one review. In the IGN review of Inquisition, author Vince Ingenito said, "Ninety hours. Thats how long it took me to roll the credits on Dragon Age: Inquisition." Ninety hours is an impressive feat. I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for another RPG that I could play for that long.

This is an actual screenshot. You can go explore that...

As you can see above, Dragon Age: Inquisition is beautiful. On PS4 it runs at 1080p and 900p for Xbox One. Dragon Age is probably the prettiest on a high powered PC but I don't own one. Nevertheless, it's still gorgeous on consoles. The foliage is extremely detailed and the weather effects are incredibly realistic. My one complaint here would be the character faces during cutscenes. They are really solid but occasionally the animations just don't match up with the words coming out of their mouths. It's small but noticeable. The game has its share of bugs. Sometimes the sounds cuts out in the heat of battle and theres an occasional lag when lots of things are happening onscreen. A day one patch fixed some of this but every now and then you'll notice it. Did I mention the game has an amazing soundtrack? The music, composed by Trevor Morris, is incredible. It sets the mood and tone in every area that you're in and just works perfectly with the game. I'm listening to it right now as I'm writing this I mean it's brilliant.

All in all, Dragon Age: Inquisition is an incredible mark for fantasy RPGs. The story isn't terrible, the combat is fast and solid, the graphics and locations are sublimely beautiful, and theres an abundance of things to do in this game. Yes it has it's faults. It isn't perfect. Few games are. But I highly recommend you go pick this up for your PS4, Xbox One, or PC. You won't regret it. Just be prepared to lose the next 100 hours of your life because you will lose yourself in Dragon Age.

8.9

+Storyline is fair

+Tons of things to do

+Graphics are mind blowing

+Combat is a blast

-Occasional bugs and frame rate dips

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Review

"Power Changes Everything"

*Reviewed for the PS4

I had mixed feelings about the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise when it was first announced. Lets face it, Ghosts was not a good game. There were hardly any new changes in multiplayer, the maps were too big for 12 man teams, the campaign's storyline was awful although gameplay was fun. But when it was announced that a new studio, Sledgehammer Games, was developing this game I can say that I was still excited, hoping for something fresh. And Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey is an iconic actor and to bring him into a video game franchise like Call of Duty is very ambitious and fun. So I picked up the game on Day Zero, Monday November 3rd, and immediately jumped into multiplayer mode since it was double XP for the launch.

Right off the bat you can tell that Advanced Warfare is different and fresh from its predecessors. We'll be breaking down this review into four categories: multiplayer customization and modes, campaign, overall gameplay, and graphics.

Advanced Warfare is set in the year 2054. You play as a United States Marine who later gets recruited by the Private Military Company, Atlas, led by the ruthless Jonathan Irons. The story dives into relevant themes in our society today such as the role of PMCs in warfare, drones, and biological weaponry. It's been a long time since I actually cared about a Call of Duty campaign. The Modern Warfare storyline has been the only one that ever meant anything to me. But I can honestly say that even though Advanced Warfare's story has its shortcomings, I actually cared about the characters and what was happening to them. The real star of the game is Kevin Spacey who provides the voice and motion capture for Irons. His character is almost identical to his House of Cards character, Frank Underwood, minus the southern accent. They both have that internal drive for power and nobody will stand in their way. The voice acting by both Spacey and Troy Baker is really awesome and the motion capture is gorgeous. The missions provide a lot of variety and the campaign clocks in at around six hours which is longer than the past couple in the franchise.

Irons alongside Mitchell and Gideon

Why do people continue playing Call of Duty after all these years? Because of it's award winning multiplayer. Unlike some multiplayer FPS games, Call of Duty is very fast paced. Advanced Warfare makes it even faster. With the introduction of the Exo suits, you are able to dodge, strafe, and double jump to yours hearts content. In previous iterations, if you walked into the middle of a giant firefight and needed to get away, you really couldn't. You would try to kill as many as you can and then accept your fate and die. In Advanced Warfare, you can run into a firefight, shoot off a few rounds, then boost jump and strafe to safety. Everything is so much more mobile. The basics of multiplayer haven't changed, the game is familiar but fresh at the same time. Advanced Warfare takes Black Ops II's Pick 10 system for your loadout and expands on it making it Pick 13. You can use wildcards that work in the same way as Perks do with options like "Overkill" which allows you to carry 2 primary weapons, or "Primary Gunfighter" which lets you equip 3 attachments for your primary. Customization is one of the main things driving this game, the game lets you play your way. With the Exo suit you can choose different abilities like Overclock which temporarily boosts your speed or Hover. Taking a piece from Ghosts, Advanced Warfare lets you customize your playable character with face models, different types of gear, and Exo suits. It's nothing but eye candy, but still a cool feature to flip through and look at what different people have chosen in your lobby.

A typical loadout screen

An issue that the multiplayer has is the lack of guns. There just aren't enough of them for me to feel like I am getting a good variety. Advanced Warfare tries to fix this using Supply Drops, these come as little care packages you receive as rewards during multiplayer and they have new gear for your character and sometimes a customized version of a gun with its own unique name and stats. But it still doesn't work for me. All your favorite game modes are back like Team Deathmatch, Domination, Capture the Flag, etc. Along with a few other ones like Uplink, which is essentially Quidditch with guns and it is a lot of fun. The goal is to score points by throwing a small satellite drone into your opposing team's goal while still killing the opposing team's players.

The graphics on the PS4 are absolutely stunning. No Call of Duty before has looked this good. The cutscenes in the campaign work very well with the story that Slegdehammer has set up. I have no complaints concerning the look of this game. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is one of the best in this blockbuster franchise. Gameplay is quick and fun, the story is meaningful albeit sometimes cheesy, multiplayer is great and the maps provide good variety in size, and it's easily the best looking Call of Duty game ever made.

9.0

+Solid campaign

+Beautiful graphics

+Fast and fun multiplayer

+Acting performances

-Gun variety

-Cheesy story moments

Destiny Review

I have been waiting for this game for over a year. Luckily, I got a chance to participate in the Beta and it was fantastic. It went above and beyond my expectations. Gameplay was tight and smooth, graphics were stunning, and the world was inviting, but more on all that later. This is the most anticipated game of the year is it not? Lets dive in.
*Please note I am reviewing this on a PS4.

I started playing at 6:00am Tuesday morning September 9th after going to the midnight release. There was already a day one patch being downloaded but soon enough I got to jump into this new world. I was really impressed with the character creation. You get the option to choose from three different classes and three different races. Your class options are Titan, Warlock, and Hunter. Titans are your tank characters, they can tank lots of damage and specialize in heavy weapons and machine guns. Warlock's are your mage type characters, they are lightly armored and have powers over the Void and gain their abilities from the Traveler. Hunter's are your outlaw long range specialists. They are lightly armored, good with sniper rifles, and very agile. Each class has two subclasses that you get to pick perks for as you level up. Each subclass has their own "Super" that is a special ability devoted to that subclass. The player can't unlock the second subclass until level 15, however. The three races are Human, Awoken, and Exo. I chose to play as a Human Hunter for my first play through. The nice thing is that weapons aren't exactly tailored to each class. Every class can use every weapon. Some people may not like this because then it doesn't make much difference which class you choose.

Destiny's character creation screen

What is Destiny? This is a complicated topic. People want to classify it as a first person shooter, or an MMO, or an RPG. It's true that Destiny has all those elements to it, but it isn't defined by one thing. Bungie calls it a "shared world shooter," which makes sense because it is a first person shooter with the online elements of an MMO. Yet it's also an RPG because you are creating a character and leveling it up through gaining experience and doing missions. I don't know what to classify Destiny as. I think we should leave that for the individual player to decide.  

After having now played for over a week and my Hunter is now level 21, I think I can be a fair judge on the game. I'll start with the overall storyline. I haven't yet completed it, as I just unlocked the final planet, Mars. But so far it has not lived up to my expectations. Bungie is well known for making the Halo games, so we should expect a grand story, right? Well in terms of storytelling, Destiny falls short of those standards Bungie previously set. The world is vast and magnificent. Bungie has done a fantastic job at creating a new universe set within our own solar system, 700 years into the future. Yet the storyline itself is confusing. The game does a poor job of explaining itself. In the beginning, your traveling companion, Ghost, throws a lot of "storyline" and terms at you that don't really make sense. It's hard to explain without giving spoilers but the missions go something like this: go from point A to point B and kill things along the way. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly fun. But very repetitive. The cutscenes are kept to a minimum which means most of the story is told in dialogue from your Ghost in-game. I will say that I haven't gotten bored with it yet. And the story does get more interesting after your character makes it to Venus. But for now, I'm just a little frustrated because I expected more out of the story from Bungie.

The Tower is Destiny's social hub. It's known as the last safe city on Earth and the HQ of the Guardians. Here you can interact with merchants, the bounty tracker, the Cryptarch, and the Vanguard and Crucible Quartermasters. You'll see other players running around the Tower doing all sorts of things. 

The Tower

Gameplay is the best part of Destiny. The gun mechanics are extremely smooth and the controls feel great. Everything flows together seamlessly. From the moment you acquire your first gun you'll instantly be reminded of Halo. Destiny's gun mechanics are very similar to the Halo series, and that isn't a bad thing. As a first person shooter, Destiny shines. Headshots and precision kills feel extremely rewarding and using your Super ability to decimate multiple enemies at once makes you feel like a god. For example, Once I unlocked my second subclass, Bladedancer, my Super was called Arc Blade. Activating this pulls the perspective out to third person and my Hunter was able to sprint around and slash enemies to pieces in seconds. This is insanely fun when you're up against a horde of enemies.

Arc Blade is OP against the Hive

Destiny's loot system also surprised me. I didn't expect it to be as in depth as it is. Loot is rated by five colors: White(basic), Green(uncommon), Blue(rare), Purple(Legendary), and Gold(exotic). Chances are you won't find any legendary or exotic loot until you hit the soft level cap of 20. Yes, level 20 is the maximum cap for gaining experience points. However, leveling up is much more complicated than that. You have have two reputations, Vanguard and Crucible. Vanguard is your reputation outside of multiplayer mode. Leveling up your Vanguard rep by completing bounties and participating in Strike missions allows you to purchase legendary gear from the Vanguard Quartermasters. Leveling up your Crucible rep by winning matches in the competitive multiplayer mode allows you to buy legendary gear you can use in the Crucible. Once you reach the soft level of 20, you have to find rare, legendary, and exotic gear that has Light. Finding gear with Light allows you to level up past 20, this is called your Light Level. So right now I have a rare chest piece of armor that is +6 Light. If you find a pair of gauntlets that has 200 protection, and no light, but you find a pair of gauntlets with 180 protection and +8 Light, you want to pick the armor with Light. Loot drops happen by either enemies dropping weapons and gear, or by dropping special engrams. Engrams are rated the same way as gear is: white, green, blue, and purple. So far I have not seen a gold engram because picking up a purple one gives you the chance of decoding exotic gear anyway. Once you have an engram it is always a hidden random piece of gear until you take it to the Cryptarch in the Tower to have him decode it for you. Legendary engrams have the chance of being uncommon, rare, legendary, or exotic. Just because they are purple doesn't mean you'll get legendary gear. The other night I found my first legendary engram and when I went to decode it...I got an exotic(gold) pair of gauntlets that only a Titan can use, because they are always a random class. However, I just put it in my vault that any of my characters can access so that one day if I create a Titan, he can use them at level 20.

This is an example of the Light Level of my Hunter

Destiny's missions have a lot to offer. You can choose from Campaign, Strike, or Patrol missions. Destiny's raids are also open but it's best to not mess with those until you're at level 26. Strike missions are a blast. You get to band together with 2 other people in your fireteam online and play through a long mission with a big boss at the end and lots of loot along the way. Patrol missions are just exploring whichever planet you're on without having to be confined by actual mission objectives. These Patrol missions range from "Kill this many enemies" to "Go here and scan this," they're very simple and you get minimal XP from them. There is literally so much content that it's hard to cover it all in one review.

Now onto graphics. The graphics in Destiny are beautiful. The cutscenes are smooth and look fantastic. During gameplay everything flows together nicely. The game only runs at 30 frames per second, which upset people when it was first announced but honestly you can't even tell. Each planet is characterized by its terrain and colors. All the ground models look very real and the character detail is magnificent. There's nothing to complain about here.

The Traveler

Destiny's Multiplayer mode is called the Crucible. The Crucible has four game modes: Control, Clash, Rumble, and Skirmish. Control is Destiny's version of Domination, control the 3 flag zones to gain points for your team. Clash is Team Deathmatch. Rumble is Free-for-All, and Skirmish is small 3v3 Deathmatch. All of your gear that you've acquired in the game is transferred over to the Crucible. For each game mode, Level Advantages are disabled, to equal the playing field for everyone.

You can see my Hunter on the far left

Like I said earlier, it's hard to cover everything about this expansive game in just one review. You might as well go pick it up for yourself. I love this new universe that Bungie has made for us. Destiny won't satisfy everyone. There is very much a grind for getting new gear. The gamers looking for a new MMO should look somewhere else, because Destiny isn't an MMO despite having some of those elements. Same goes for someone looking for a new FPS. Destiny tries really hard to be all these different genres and it doesn't always mesh well. So far it's my favorite game of 2014, but there are a lot of games coming out soon. Thanks for reading, Guardians.

8.5

+Graphics

+Gameplay

+Loot system

-Story is lame

-Identity issues

Mass Effect: A Replay

I have been thinking of doing this for a long time but with all the rumors about a possible Mass Effect Trilogy Remastered edition for PS4 I figured I would wait. However, a couple days ago I decided to go ahead and replay the trilogy on my Xbox 360. Lets face the facts, this series is just too good. So the next three reviews I post on this blog are going to be about Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 and how they stand the test of time. Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007 and Mass Effect 2 was released in 2010. Obviously Mass Effect 3, having come out in 2012, is only two years old, but this at least gives me a chance to write a review that I haven't done yet, on one of my favorite games. Although this is a replay for me, some of you may have not played through it yet, so I will make sure to provide some background information on the story while avoiding spoilers.

I'll admit that I came a little late to the party in terms of the Mass Effect games. I started playing them last summer and each game took me about 25-30 hours, so that kept me well occupied for a couple weeks. Mass Effect 1 has to admittedly be my least favorite of the trilogy but that doesn't mean it is by any standards a bad game, in fact at the time it was released it was one of the best games ever made. Mass Effect 1 is where it all began. I'll get into the technical stuff here in a minute though. For those of you wanting to replay this fantastic trilogy along with me, head on over to GameStop and pick up the whole thing for $29.99 brand new.

Also available for PS3

Mass Effect takes place in the year 2183. 35 years after humans discovered the ruins of the Protheans, an ancient alien civilization. Through this discovery, humanity was able to take the Prothean technology of "mass effect physics" and "element zero" to move at faster than light speed travel and it propelled them into the far reaches of space where they discovered other alien races and the Mass Relay system that threaded the galaxy allowing for this galactic travel. With this new discovery humanity was able to enter the galactic stage. The main alien races are: Turians, Asari, Geth, Quarians, Salarians, Volus, Hanar, and Drell. But there are many others that the player will encounter. You play as Commander Shepard, a human member of the Alliance Navy.

A Mass Relay

One thing to keep in mind is that Mass Effect is an RPG and the best thing about these games is that the character you create in Mass Effect 1 is, hopefully, the same character you continue to use throughout the entire trilogy. BioWare lets you import your save profile from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2 and then on to Mass Effect 3. In doing this, BioWare has allowed each gamer to generate their own unique storyline with the choices the player made, resulting in different outcomes by the end of Mass Effect 3. There are three general paths to take in the series. Paragon, Renegade, or a mix of the two. Being a Paragon means the choices you make will be the "good" choices and people will come to love you. Being a Renegade is the sort of "dark" path. Based on my experience as a Renegade through this second play-though, it just means you will do anything to get the job done. I like to think I'm creating my own Jack Bauer. Or you can mix and match your "good and evil" choices. Leveling up and allocating your experience points into your character is really simple and there are different slots to level up your skills with certain weapons, dialogue options, overall skill, health, and many other things. When you choose your character, you are given the option to decide their background, and that influences how people view you. Whether you choose: Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer. Then you get to choose your military history which are choices like: Sole Survivor, War Hero, or Ruthless. If you so choose you can also customize your first name and appearance. Creating a first name is sort of pointless because everyone just calls you, "Shepard."

Default male and female Shepard 

In terms of gameplay, Mass Effect 1 is the worst out of all three, but gameplay improves with each subsequent game. All the Mass Effect games are third-person shooter. Combat, specifically shooting, is very outdated and there is a significant amount of lag during intense battle sequences. Overall I don't think Mass Effect is very glitchy compared to Skyrim, or any Assassin's Creed game, but when things pick up during a firefight, any amount of lag is a bad thing. Switching weapons is easy. You just have to hold LB down and move the left stick to your weapon of choice, and the game pauses during all this. The equipment menus are extremely unorganized though. Mass Effect 2 and 3 improve on this feature so that during a mission you can't change your assault rifle to a different one unless you pick up a new gun or find a weapon locker in the level. It sounds like that could be an issue, but it really isn't. Something that stands out as extremely frustrating is the Galaxy Map on your ship. The Galaxy Map is what you use to travel around space. Each mission is logged in your journal. The journal tells you which galaxy and solar system your mission takes place in, but not the planet. So you wind up spending some time through trial and error trying to figure out which planet your mission takes place on. Once you find the planet, you eject out of your ship into the Mako and land. The Mako is my least favorite part of the game. It is a land vehicle that Shepard uses to traverse the area your mission takes place in. The driving controls are weird and unnatural and it doesn't run very smoothly. Slight nit-picking I know but still it is awful. Mass Effect 1's auto-save function is notoriously horrendous. The game simply doesn't save often enough so you could wind up playing a couple hours and then die for the first time and lose all that progress. So I would recommend manually saving as often as you can.

A major component of Mass Effect is your squad. Although Spectres generally work alone, Shepard doesn't. Your squad consists of you and two other teammates. Throughout the story the player will pick up different squad members to choose from for each mission. As Shepard gains experience points from killing enemies and completing missions the player can level up his or her stats along with your squad members'. Using your squad you can combine different weapon styles and power moves. For example, you can play with an assault rife, and command your other two squad mates to use a shotgun and sniper rifle for a deadly three weapon combo.

ME1 Squad Members

The graphics of Mass Effect 1 were pretty amazing in 2007. And at times there are scenes of a landscape shot of a planet and it's still beautiful. Yet naturally they don't live up to the graphical standards of today. The frame rate is low, which causes the lag during intense combat. Character animation can feel awkward at times and the mouth movements aren't the greatest. But once you start the game and play a couple hours graphics can be overlooked as long as the game is still fun and playable, and Mass Effect 1 most definitely is.

Overall Mass Effect 1 is still amazingly fun to play and with all of the different choices a player can make throughout the course of the game, a second or even third play-through is highly recommended. The story is where Mass Effect 1 shines. It is rich and full of unique characters. Enemies are diverse and so are weapon choices and weapon customization. Leveling up never gets old and the whole game is accompanied with an amazing soundtrack that I still listen to all the time. Do yourself a favor and go buy the whole trilogy, play it, and check back here for reviews of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.

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8.5

+Fantastic story

+Morality system

+Nice graphics in 2007...

-...but they don't live up to today's graphics

-Gameplay is very outdated/lag issues

-Terrible auto-save function

Infamous Second Son Review

Be Your Own Superman

Let me start off by saying I beat Second Son twice this weekend. My first play through I went down the "Good" Karma path. It's hard for me to play as an evil character, but after playing as a hero, I immediately restarted and set down the path of becoming "Infamous." Second Son is a quick campaign, probably about 10 hours or less, depending on how much time you spend roaming around Seattle. And Seattle is beautifully realized. The developers at Sucker Punch really nailed down the city. And climbing to the top of the Seattle Space Needle was a pretty cool experience, especially when I used my orbital drop smoke power to dispatch the enemies and knock off the D.U.P. scaffolding that was on it. 

Going down

The game is really as long as you want it to be. Since I have beaten it twice, both times on the hardest difficulty, I am on my way to getting all the trophies so I can get the Platinum trophy. You can probably spend about twenty hours on a single play through if you complete all the side missions and completely wipe out the D.U.P.

In terms of the actual storyline, you play as Delsin Rowe, a twenty-something year old Native American man. Delsin is a bit of a rebel as his favorite past time is going around and "tagging", or spray-painting, billboards with his big brother's face on them. His brother Reggie is the local Salmon Bay sheriff. Salmon Bay is where you start for the first forty-five minutes of the game and thats where Delsin first gets his smoke powers. A lot has changed since the events of inFamous 2 unfolded. I don't want to necessarily spoil the ending of that game, but you should play it if you haven't. inFamous 2 left the world in a fragile state. Those with powers have been labeled as "Bio-Terrorists" and the D.U.P., Department of Unified Protection, has been tasked with searching for them and rounding them up. Those who sympathize with the Bio-Terrorists' cause call them Conduits. And all Conduits that are captured by the D.U.P. are taken to Curden Cay, a prison just for Conduits. Delsin has to go to Seattle to set something right that happens early in the story and that is where the real fun begins. Overall, the story is good. It isn't the best but its enough. You still feel invested in what is going on. I wish that Delsin had more to do with the other Conduits other than meeting them and then doing a quick side mission, but oh well. I will say that the Good vs. Evil karma system is somewhat outdated. And having played both sides of the story I can safely say that although you make different choices throughout the game, nothing is really different until the end sequence. Choosing to save or kill this or that person doesn't impact anything other than the people in town will hate you or love you. I only wish it was all a bit more complex. The storyline hits some slow points at times but it quickly ramps up, especially whenever Delsin encounters new Conduits that he can leech new powers off of. I had a blast running around Seattle at super speed with my new neon powers. And the graphics really show off the neon.

At the top of the tallest building in the game

Which brings me to my next point. Graphics. I touched on it earlier but Second Son is beautiful. Second Son uses the full power of the PS4 and it turns out great. Hook your PS4 up to a 65" HDTV and you'll never leave the couch...trust me. All of the powers look and feel really great and they run very smoothly. The only time I ever felt a hiccup in the frame rate was when I used my neon Area of Effect power, probably because there is just so much happening on screen. But other than that, everything ran smoothly in the graphical area.

Gameplay is easily the most important factor in this game and the ones that came before it. By the end of the game you'll have up to four different powers and abilities that go with them. Smoke is what you start out with and eventually you get neon. I won't spoil the other two as they are surprises, but don't worry you're in good hands. You're never short of a power source in the game, there is always a neon sign you can drain or a smokestack you can get to in order to refill your power meter. And transferring between powers in the heat of battle can be extremely advantageous. I recommend playing the game on Expert mode, as playing on normal is just too easy. On Normal you can dominate enemies using one power the whole time, which if you're trying to blow through the game then by all means do so. But Expert is just more fun. It isn't too hard and I died more so out of my self-confidence rather than an enemy who got the upper hand.  And in Expert mode you should prepare yourself to be switching powers a lot. As you level up and gain more blast shards to increase your powers, you start working your way through the power trees that Sucker Punch provides for you. These are easy to navigate and once you're about 3/4 of the way through the game you will probably have reached whichever level 5 Karma path you chose to go down. The controls are simple enough, push a button to use this ability, hit the touch pad to drain a power, etc. Bottom line: inFamous Second Son runs smoothly and the gameplay is addictingly fun.

The gem of this game is really the voice acting. Troy Baker, the star of video game voice acting, is Delsin Rowe. Literally he is Delsin. Sucker Punch used some motion capture on the faces of Troy and their other actors so Troy and Delsin very much resemble each other. Troy Baker does a great job bringing Delsin to life and providing the sarcastic jokester personality that makes Delsin who he is. The other voice actors are good too. Particularly Christine Dunford who provides the voice of Brooke Augustine, the game's antagonist.

Thanks Troy

I haven't written a review since my first one, BioShock Infinite, last April. I know I'm lazy. But after beating Second Son twice this past weekend I felt so compelled to write this and tell everyone around me that they had to play the game. If you don't have a PS4, then this is your excuse to get one. Second Son is the most fun I have had playing a game since Borderlands 2. The storyline is good, not amazing. The graphics look just fantastic on the PS4. And the gameplay and controls are smooth and easy to figure out. Hope you enjoyed the review, please comment and tell me about your Second Son experiences in Seattle.

If you want to see some gameplay, just click on this link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=830854433597952&l=431279556556184423

9/10

+Amazing graphics

+Fun addicting gameplay

+Smooth controls

+Cool storyline...

-...but kinda minor in the grand scheme of things