Hello readers! We had a long and lovely break over the holidays but we are back and ready to jump into 2017. We played a number of games over the break but there are a few that stood out. Here's a quick run down of some of the games that captured our attention during our winter break.
1) The Walking Dead: A New Frontier : This one came to us via a review code from Telltale. We'll be covering the premiere episodes in greater detail soon. Let me just say that so far, this season has stood out as particularly dark. If you're at all familiar with the previous two seasons, you'll understand there is a high bar for depressing, dark storytelling in the series already. Having played as Clementine in the second season, it is really interesting to see her from an outside perspective again, and see how the decisions I made in season two have worn on her over time. Still a rock solid game so far, some have hope that the coming episodes will lighten the tone somewhat, but in my experience, things only get darker as the episodes roll on.
2) The Vanishing of Ethan Carter: This is a somewhat older game that's been on my list for a while. As a gift to myself, I picked up the Unreal 4 re-release as part of the Unreal Humble Bundle. I've only just gotten into it, but the environments in the game are absolutely stunning. It's an incredibly immersive world that I've been left to wander and the story I've uncovered so far has awakened my Lovecraftian interests. The core mechanic of linking pieces of evidence together to find the greater narrative is inventive and clever. There are more puzzles cleverly hidden throughout the game, and I'm sure I've passed more than one of them by at this point.
3) Final Fantasy XV: Okay. This is not one that I've actually been playing, but Mike and Morgan have, as well as just about everyone else I know. It has been very well received so far, and I am constantly reminded by Mike that I need to pick it up. I've been out of the Final Fantasy cycle for a while now. The last game in the franchise I can say I thoroughly played through was Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube. It's been a long time, but I'm starting to think that it's time I came back into the fold. We will likely have more coverage on FFXV soon, but expect that coverage from Mike or Morgan, as they are far closer to the series than I (as should now be quite evident).
