First Published: Aug 4, 2014
Voted For By: Ric
Reason(s) For Vote:
“No one can round up a month like Richie, and no one can become obsessed with killing ants like Richie. But I think it’s more out of sympathy for Richie’s poor, ant-riddled brain. Keep fighting the good fight, dude.” – Ric

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Ants. Fucking ants, man. I’m continuing to play Earth Defense Force 2025. I’m now three hundred hours deep. When I’m not playing the game, I’m outside killing giant ants with hammers. It’s all I know. Apparently it’s summer. I don’t know anymore. Time is as meaningless as a boxset of Storage Wars and just as cruel. If it is summer that means we’re in a summer drought, but that concept is largely meaningless now, given that no-one wants to go toe-to-toe with FIFA and CoD anymore.

The benefit of that is that big games can now come out at any time. So it’s not a drought. Or is it? The downside is that giant ants are taking over the world while you play your fancy Xbox Ones and PlayStation 4s or something. Did I mention ants? Fuck.

Anyway, GamingLives waits for no man/ant. The review stream continues and it flows directly into your gob. Even for you Wii U owners (I’m so sorry). Nintendo did at least put out Mario Kart 8. I’ve not liked any of these since the SNES game, and that wasn’t as good as Street Racer, but Wii U owners are loving it. BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO. Life in PS4/Xbox One land is a little bit better. Sort of. The big problem is that everything is cross-generational to the point where the software companies are all basically Josef Fritzl. So whenever a big game comes out, it’s always going to be hamstrung by a mandatory appearance on the old consoles.

This was certainly the case with Watch_Dogs which came a little late to the party but brought a big bottle of hype with it. Unfortunately it wasn’t amazing. It was just quite good. It felt like everything Ubisoft had ever done and was comparable to such sandbox also-rans as Sleeping Dogs. And not always favourably. Every aspect of Watch_Dogs has been done better by other games in the genre but, overall, it’s a pretty good package. It’s just that we don’t want a ‘pretty good’ package, we want Ron Jeremy in speedos rubbing up against our joypads. I think. I don’t know anymore. Fucking ants.

Our ex-editor in chief, Markuz Wahlberg, has been getting his rocks off, though. He’s loving his PS4 and has recently given the thumbs up to Wolfenstein (the great, great grandson of the original nazi-slaying FPS) and Sniper Elite 3. The good news is that when this ant shit is over, these games will be vastly cheaper and I’ll be able to enjoy them. Fabby times ahead. Fucking ants. Less fabby is Murdered: Soul Suspect which is a game about being dead and inquisitive at the same time. I’ve heard good things about it, but not from Ric and he gets the final say until someone comes along with a chewier face. Which isn’t likely.

The big thing on the PS4 as I write this is The Last of Us Remastered. I didn’t like The Last of Us much. It bored me, and given that my gaming tastes have no quality control at all, not being bored is basically the only thing I ever want from games. My wife fucking loved it though and with all these extra frames per second, I’m sure it’ll be an even smoother experience on the PS4. Again, I’ll wait and will give it a second chance. Fucking ants. Fans of not having plastic discs also got Blue Estate, a surprisingly decent motion-controlled shooter that plays and feels like House of the Dead: Overkill but with a better scoring system and more Yakuza, which is all we ever wanted from the light gun genre really. Even if it doesn’t actually use light. Feels like it does though.

Less good is the top-down scroller Crimsonland, which promised all sorts of blood-drenched hyperviolent action and ended up being what happens when you make I Made a Game with Zombies in It look like it’s set in the Gears of War universe. It’s quite challenging but I’d wait until it ends up on PS+ before shelling out any cash on that bullshit. Another World, the once-stunning-now-needs-to-be-retired action-platformer, made it onto PSN for some reason. Look, I love the fucking game but it’s had its day and has been re-released more than Pac-Man when he was a low ranking drug dealer on the streets of New York.

The downloady fun stops with Transistor by the clever, but smug, folks that brought us Bastion (which was okay, but let’s not wank our shafts down to nubbins, people). It does look pretty good though. Again, one for the future (hopefully via PS+). Fucking ants. I don’t think anyone played Valiant Hearts on any of the consoles. It was about war and feelings. Two things I have no interest in unless it’s a war against ants and the feeling is hatred (of ants). Fucking ants.

Vita owners (sorry 3DS chums, I can’t be cunted with your shit) got a few things to play. Z-Run was apparently an endless runner about zombies or some shit and it’s no good (according to Ste who no longer writes for us since becoming the first man to sexually contract ebola from a gazelle), Child of Light was apparently good but, also, apparently an RPG so fuck that, and a genuine big physical release happened. Borderlands 2 got its four hundreth article on here when we reviewed the Vita version. Opinions were mixed out in the world but Ste liked it as much he likes anything he’s ever liked enough to give a seven.

In other news, two brilliant looking PC games turned out to be boring tosh; Kill The Bad Guy and Lifeless Planet both set my citrus meter off and made me think about firing up the old PC but the reviews turned me off. There was gaming news and debate but, for some reason, everybody got caught up on the lack of women in Assassin’s Creed Unity and went on about it so fucking much that I stopped reading anything ever. Apart from these fucking charts.

1. WATCH_DOGS – Daylight won’t stop flashing lights
2. FIFA 14 – Feels like a thousand years gone by without you
3. MINECRAFT: XBOX 360 EDITION – I miss someone like you
4. SNIPER ELITE 3 – I want to tell you secret things
5. THE LEGO MOVIE VIDEOGAME – My lips won’t say anything that makes sense
6. MINECRAFT: PLAYSTATION 3 EDITION – I want to run you but my legs won’t respond
7. GRAND THEFT AUTO V – I want to know exactly what you are
8. TITANFALL – If you come dance with me I think you will like my moves
9. CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS – If you get next to me I will have nothing left to prove
10. BATTLEFIELD 4 – Look in my eyes. You see the reflection of you.

Maybe next month’s charts will be better. Like Mozart said “I can’t lie to you about your chances. But…. you have my symphonies.”

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