New Week

Morning gamers,
So I did pick up Destiny in the end and I have to say no regrets with that decision what so ever. I will not say its amazing and game of the century but it is a really good game. Good solid eight out of ten in my books, what is letting it down is the story campaign which is boring. What makes up for it is the graphics and amazing game play with friends, this is where the game shines. Playing with your friends and the time will just fly by and next thing you know you have spent six hours in the game, forgot tea and got some amazing boss fight stories for your troubles.

I also did pick up Minecraft at the same time on both consoles, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 which came out just a few days before Destiny. Love them to bits or though I am putting more time into the Xbox One version since I have a friends on there up for playing so we have a community world built.

So as you can tell I've got plenty to play with right now and let's not forgot I got Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition for the PlayStation 4 sitting next to my TV. I have decided that I need to use the next few weeks to try and clock a game. My next new release is not until October 3rd which of course is Middle Earth Shadows of Mordor. Really looking forward to getting my hands on that game and from the looks of things I will have the whole of October to play it since most of my new releases got pushed back to November.



My plans until this game comes out is to try and finish the story campaign for Diablo, of course also put some time into Destiny and Minecraft. I also have the Lego Movie game for the Xbox 360 on rental so I could do with working on that and clocking it so I can send it back. Think that's a good game plan to start with this week, it's been a long while since I've clocked a game so I better set off and get started.

Have a good one folks and I will catch up with you again in the week
~Iznic

Holiday Fun

Morning folks,
It's been a few days since I got back off my holiday and just settling back down again. I thought since I've got the day off today it would be good to get another blog post up before I started any gaming.

Awesome start to the day with the announcement of Minecraft for the Xbox One coming out this Friday! that woke up me quite quickly when I checked the news this morning in bed. No doubt in my mind that we will see the PlayStation 4 any day now along with the Vita version as well. Will have to dedicate some time this weekend into making some awesome worlds, really cannot wait to get back into it since I've been holding off building anything lately.

I know you can transfer the worlds over from the old consoles but I wanted a fresh slate and start a new. Good news though is any DLC packs bought will be transferable, picked up several packs early on the year when they was on sale so that's a bonus. Also the price is awesome since if you own it already you get a discount. This was posted up earlier on twitter...

"Minecraft: Xbox One Edition is £3.99 / €4.99 if you own the Xbox 360 Edition, and £15.99 / €19.99 if you don't. Out Friday!"

£3.99?! bargain! just hope the same happens with the PlayStation 4 version when they announce the date.

Anyway enough about Minecraft for now since I will no doubt be posting a ton this weekend about it. So let's talk about another upcoming game and thats Destiny which is out next week. I really do not know what to say about this game, it looks good and I did enjoy the Beta. Do I think the hype for it is bang on? no I don't, I really don't see this being the game of the century that everyone claims it is. Don't get me wrong it looks amazing and it probably will be good, but don't think its this ten out of ten.

I have it pre-ordered on the PlayStation 4 just a box standard edition but I'm really not sure if I will get it day one now. Thing is though if I do wait and then when I pick it up later it could be brilliant and I will have a long grind to catch up with my friends. Also to note I have no games other than Minecraft slated for this month and October is already falling a part with delays so I would have plenty of time to play it or to work on some old games.

Will have to think about it over the weekend, probably wise to check out what is coming out over the next few months so I can plan my spending. I know November is jam packed this year with lots of goodies.

Anyway on that note I'm going to shoot since I want to get some time on Diablo, have a good one folks
~Iznic

Looking Forward

Evening folks,

After writing the earlier post about last week I thought it be a good idea to do a post about my thoughts for the upcoming week. It’s going to be a very busy week for non-gaming since I’m heading off on holiday at the end of the week and I got a trip to the Microsoft HQ mid-week there is plenty to do.

Gaming for this week though is huge! It’s the week to start off the end of year releases for me. Starting on Tuesday sees the release of Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition on the consoles. Picking this up on the PlayStation 4 so I can play with the Shadow of Colossus armour and the Last of Us dungeon. Really looking forward to playing Reaper of Souls content since I’ve not had chance to touch it on the PC yet. Going to transfer my save over from the PS3 so I can jump straight into the expansion on the PS4.

So yeah that’s the first game to start off my end of year releases although the next one will not be coming out until September (probably Destiny first). Although I did just find out Swords Art Online for the Vita is releasing this week. I completely forgot this was coming out since the last I heard it was meant to hit the marketplace back in July. Not sure about this game fully yet since I’ve not had time to the watch anime TV show but the concept sounds amazing. Will have to wait and see what the price is for the game, probably have to wait until after my holiday to pick it up.

So that’s it for releases this week but I do need to start working on some gaming though, not sure where I will fit it in though with the less free time this week. Oh wow I just remember there is one more thing releasing this week! The next expansion for Star Wars Old Republic hits on Tuesday as well. Wow I’m really shocked I forgot the early access starts this week because I was subscribed. This expansion introduces strongholds so player houses/bases basically which will be awesome to store all the cool loot. Player housing in Star Wars Galaxies was one of my favourite things for that game so I have high expectations for it in SWTOR.

So this game along with World of Warcraft is on my list to start replaying again since I’ve recently not been giving it the time of day it deserves, plus I’m wasting timecards which is never a good thing.

It’s going to be a busy week with everything I want to play and should be playing. Warcraft, SWTOR, Diablo and so on, need to get some games completed before the big October rush hits. 

How about you folks? Got plenty to play? Or have you been keeping on top of you gaming pile? On that note I’m going to head off and play some games.

Night folks,

Iznic

Last Week

Morning folks,

It’s been a while since I’ve really last posted on here but the last few months have been chaos for me. It was coming to the point getting spare time to write out a blog post was becoming impossible. It’s even made it a struggle to get game time in the last few weeks as well. 

Anyway good news I will try harder to at least get one post done each week to keep you folks up to date, plus I really do enjoy talking about games here.

So I’m not sure what to cover in this post or where to start since there has been a ton of new announcements since the last time we spoke. In the end I’ve decided to focus on what my thoughts have been this week concerning my gaming life and go from there.

Of course this week is all about GAMESCON which has pretty much all I’ve been talking about this week with the new announcements. Started off with the Tomb Raider 2 announcement about it being exclusive to the Xbox next holiday season. That really shocked me and I was floored by the news, of course with the wording “holiday exclusive” it was crystal clear that it was a timed exclusive but still shocking. Keep hearing Crystal Dynamics was scared of Uncharted being released so it does make sense to target the Xbox market while Uncharted comes out then do a second release later on for the PlayStation fans.

Also on that day another item was added to my buy list and that was the amazing limited edition Xbox One console in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare theme. I love the three colour scheme with the gold trim and to be honest it doesn’t really look like a Call of Duty theme which is probably why I like it so much. Plus the added bonus of a 1TB hard drive is a must since I found out the day that my Xbox One hard drive is at 41% full. I’ve barely got anything on it and with so many games coming out in the next few months I think I will need the upgrade.

I’ve put the order down anyway and I can decide closer to the date if I need to cancel but right now I want to upgrade. After Tomb Raider and the Xbox One the last thing on my mind this week was the World of Warcraft announcement. Think every fan has been awaiting for the announcement for the release date and finally on Thursday we had it. 13^th November we will see the release of Warlords of Draenor along with the awesome looking cinematic trailer for the expansion.

All through the video I was shouting “you cannot do that”, so many questions to be answers and could we be seeing a full alternate timeline to play around with. Blizzard could go full force with this and bring the Burning Legion into it in the next expansion, messing around with time opens up so much stuff to play with for the future expansions I just cannot wait to see what happens.

Shortly after announcing all this the physical collector’s edition was put up finally after months of waiting, everyone knew it was coming but of course we had to wait. Although we did have to wait nearly a day to confirm that collector’s box matches the rest in the series. Check it out below but I will be picking this up on day of launch.

That’s it for me today folks so have a good one folks,

Iznic

Looking Good

Evening folks,
Currently suffering from Hay fever and a cold so what a way to spend the weekend. Anyway did any of you catch the Star Wars Old Republic stream the other night which was showing off Stronghold footage?

I feel in love with it soon as they started and I cannot believe how big the Nar Shaddaa living space is and that's going to be offered free to people who already subscribed. In fact if you was subscribed before a certain day in May you get five rooms unlocked as well which is awesome.

If you missed the video but do want to know check out the full information page which is linked here. They meant to be archiving the video they did but so far I cannot seem to find anything yet but once I do will put it but for now all the information is on that page I've just linked. At the end of the video they showed off one of the biggest strongholds that is on Tatooine, check out the teaser trailer below.



Cannot wait for the early access in August so i can start playing this, I'm amazed how much this expansion has brought me back to this game. I think its because it reminds me slightly of Star Wars Galaxies but only a little.

Thing I like about MMO's is collecting and crafting so I love the idea of having a base where I can store/display my collections. Shame the customisation is not huge like being able to put things on desks and shelves but they have done an excellent job. I'm looking forward to seeing what else this expansion will bring and there should be another stream this Wednesday, each stream will cover a different topic on the expansion so this should be good.
~Iznic

Star Wars The Old Republic Expansion Preview Today

Just seen on the Star Wars website that starting today they will be doing a weekly stream on Twitch showing off the new strongholds for the upcoming expansion. All the details are below but if you into the game and want to see what you can do with your own places then it looks to be worth a watch. Will be checking out myself since I want to see how the strongholds look in game.

Where: www.twitch.tv/swtor
Time: 8.30pm GMT / 1.30pm PDT - 2nd July 2014
Star Wars Website Announcement: http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20140701

The new expansion is what got me interested back into the game, I loved having my own place in Star Wars Galaxies where I could store all my stuff on display. In fact I had multiple houses and made small museums using the rare loot I found. Really interested to see this stream tonight to see what kind of housing we getting plus how much freedom we have with the decorating. If you want details on the new expansion check out the video below and the official page for it after that.

Star Wars The Old Republic Galactic Strongholds Website

~Iznic

Summer Time

Good morning gamers,
It's been a while since I've done a post and in fact it was before E3 the last time. The words busy cannot describe what's been going on and I won't go into the details but I'm hoping to get back to posting again. There has been a lot of changes since the last time we spoke and I really do not know where to begin with all this.

Biggest changes would probably be the best place to start I guess so let's start with the fact I hit over 160,000 gamer score finally last week. Clocked it without realising thanks to Valiant Hearts which by the way is amazing, graphics style is beautiful and the story gets to you. I'm about half way but I've had a few days off from playing video games since of work and being tired. Anyway back to the gamer score and it has been a long time earned, should have hit this months ago if not a year ago. Still hoping to hit a great score by the end of the year, will it be 200,000? doubt it but that would be awesome on so many scales.

Second biggest thing to happen would have to be me owning a Wii U, yes folks I did buy one in the end and it was just after E3 has well. Mario Kart 8 was calling to me and I did want to get Monster Hunter later on as well, the free game with Mario Kart was a nice bonus. E3 was not that bad either for the Wii U and I did like the look of Zelda and Splattoon, still think there could be more made for the console. But yes it was look appealling but what made me get it in the end was the fact HMV knocked the price down to £130 when I went in. I've seen preowned units going for £190 so that was a bargain and it included Nintendoland as well so yeah bought it straight away. Picked up Mario Kart 8 a day later and got Monster Hunter for free using the promo code.

So am I enjoying it? yes and no, not put that much time on it due to fact the last two weeks have been crazy, think I've clocked two hours on it so far but from what I've played I love it. Mario Kart 8 is awesome and would recommend it to anyone, my girlfriend has taken over it right now and clocked more time on it then me. I love the fact we can put the game onto the pad so we can watch TV still while playing, just makes life so much easier.

So other than those two there has been a few things but I won't cover those in this post today. I will promise to get some more posts done soon, it's just getting the time and not having writers block. Also really want to do some work on the layout and change the blog a bit to make it bit more appealing, so fingers crossed while we in the summer where there is less games coming out I can get all this done.

Until then my readers have a good day and I will catch you later.
~Iznic

What a nightmare

Morning folks,
Sorry for the lack of posts this week with E3 being on at the start I was pretty much glued to the screen watching all the nice trailers being shown. I did plan to write some posts yesterday but then I realised my Xbox One had stopped earning achievements altogether. On Monday I noticed a problem with Tomb Raider and thought it was just the game bugging out. But yesterday I was missing about eight achievements across two different games. So spent the evening/night chatting on twitter with the Xbox support trying to find the problem.

Got to say they was helpful but in the end I found the problem, seemed my achievement app had broken. Everyone thought it was a delay since it can take up to 48 hours for an achievement to pop which shocked me since up to this week it's always been instant for me. I looked into it and there are few cases where people would have 100% requirements listed under the achievement but still unlocked. It would then unlock randomly days after at any point, mine did not have that. The requirement bar did not budge from 50% even though I did the requirements more then once. Anyway I got it working again this morning by doing a full factory reset, pain in the ass since I now have to reinstall everything again. Hopefully I've not lost too much in the ways of progression as well but achievements are working again.

Down side is though I got to re-earn them all again since they did not unlock and that's annoying because I got two luck achievements yesterday in Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare that I had been trying for months for. Argh!! such a pain! oh well hopefully my next matches will turn out great again.

So folks I will be doing some E3 stuff hopefully this afternoon/evening once I've caught on my jobs that I missed yesterday, until then have a good one folks.
~Iznic

Few days left

Afternoon folks,
I cannot believe we only have about what two maybe three days before it's E3. Time has really flown by this year and I cannot wait to see what exciting announcements will happen this year. But of course it's not all happening Monday, it's the lead up to E3 so there is usually announcements and leaks so I want to get this post in with a few new things that has happened over the last few days.

First up Witcher 3 had it's own conference where you got to see some amazing gameplay and a really nice collectors edition was announced as well. Check out the full conference below...



So what do you think? I never really sat down with the Witcher series in the past but I have heard some really amazing things about them. I think this one I will have to give it a shot and I am tempted for that nice collectors edition, little expensive though is the problem. I just love the amazing artwork on the steelbook and the huge figurine, not sure where it would go though since my shelves are full right now with mostly Assassin's Creed. Still got work out where the new Assassin's Creed figurines will go this year.

Luckily though it's not coming out until 2015 so plenty of time to decided on if I want to get it or not, probably the only time I will say I'm happy about a game coming out next year.

Onto the next game which is Battlefield Hardline which has pretty much been confirmed now, launch trailer was posted up by EA the other day giving a taste of whats to come. They did put in though its coming this October so I was a bit shocked about that, I thought we would not see another Battlefield this year. Anyway check out the trailer below to get an idea of things to come but so far all the rumours about the game is coming true.



Will I get it? not sure right now, it does look like a cool upgraded Payday game but I really want to see more of it before I say I will buy it. Not sure about tagging the Battlefield name to it though? why not just stick with the Hardline title.

That's it for this post and I will try for another post or two tomorrow if I can get the time, if not then it will be on Monday. Until then have fun folks and I will see you all soon.
~Iznic

Sequel Shock

I was not expecting to see this at all but earlier on a online retailer accidentally leaked a new Homefront game. It's one thing that makes me wonder is why the hell do publishers give their upcoming unannounced games information to retailers so early. So they can get the pre-order ready to go live on the minute of announcement? why not send the information has the game gets announced, does a day or two after for pre-orders to start really matter that much?. Save your game getting accidentally leaked all the bloody time, most leaks now are thanks to retailers and their staff. Amazes me really but anyway so yes there was a leak saying Homefront 2 was to be announced at E3.

I played and completed the first game which was just average in my books, gameplay was ok but the story I could not fully get into. Concept was good but there was something that annoyed me about it but not going into the debate about it. Anyway the game was traded in and to be honest I was not going to give the series another look unless something amazing happened.

Well of course THQ is gone and Crytek/Deepsilver are now running the show and got to say the trailer for this one looks amazing.



So Homefront: The Revolution is set four years after and will be open world, information posted up says you can do co-op to work as your own resistance cell to fight back and the world reacts to your actions. If all this is true and is done right it could be amazing! imagine running hit and run missions to weaken certain points. Supply attacks to weaken their bases then going in for the final push. Never thought I be excited to see a sequel to Homefront but I cannot wait for next week to find out more about this game.

What do you think readers? will this be a buy for you or a to watch?
~Iznic

Monday Thoughts

Morning folks,
Time for an update on what I've been up to in the world of gaming and that of course is all Watch_Dogs. Actually that's a lie I did play some Star Wars Old Republic yesterday for a few hours but yes Watch_Dogs took up most of my week. Have I finished the story campaign? no course not! been too distracted with the side missions and collectibles. Yesterday I finally completed Act 1 of the story after completing all the QR codes around the city. I will be working on the story more now that the rest of the collectible stuff cannot be finished without making progress into the story.

Night time drive

So what do I think of the game so far? I love it and give it a solid 9 out of 10 right now. Would I say game of the year? not yet and reason for that is I need to give it more time before giving it my final verdict. The game is stunning and graphics wise very impressive, check out some of my screen shots on this page that I took on the PS4 to see what I mean.

City view

City day

Game story is still too early to say and it's ok right now but I don't know, it's just not gripping me straight away. But then again if you look at Assassin's Creed with the first one, I love the game but it wasn't until mid/end game that I got sucked into the story. I think this will be the same and in fact I look forward to seeing where they take this new IP and hope to see a full series.

Lake view

So far though I'm really enjoying the game and as I said I will come back to it with my final thoughts once the story is completed. I did also pick up the Season Pass as well so I will talk about the content for that as well once I've tried it.

Causing chaos

Other than Watch_Dogs I don't really have much to talk about concerning what I've played since it took most of my week up. I will confirm that I unlocked the May 2014 card back in Hearthstone, I only hit rank 20 this month and did not play as much as I wanted to. Bit gutted about not making any progress since I really want to attempt to work my way up the ladder. I would like to try this month but it could be a interesting month. 

May Unlock

We might actually be seeing the new singleplayer expansion being added. It's listed for summer time release which of course could be July/August as well but we could see it this month. If this happens I can see the arena plays being pushed to the side while I do the raid story. I will be going for rank 20 again since there has been another backing listed for unlocking this month. Check out the very colourful and unique rainbow card, no theme on World of Warcraft this time around.

June Unlock

Think that's it folks for my gaming, I do have some thoughts on upcoming games I want to talk about but I really could do with some lunch so I'm off to cook some Tomato soup.
~Iznic