Juz Finished: The Swapper

The Swapper is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer set in a science fiction world in outer space. It is side project developed by two university students from Helsinki, funded by indie pub fund. First released on Windows platform in 2013, later released to PS4/PS3/PSV by Curve Digital who handled the port.

Roughly six hours of interesting puzzle gameplay, with the difficulty ramping up quickly in the later stages. I totally enjoyed this title, something that I might not have picked up if not for PS Plus.

The Swapper, deserves all the positive reviews it gets, and I rate it as one of the must plays in the puzzle platformer genre.

Commentary: Will Consoles Hardware Iterate Frequently akin to Smartphones

Several games publications and analyst postulates that in order for consoles to remain relevant, it needs to refresh its hardware every one or two years. This is to ensure that the hardware maintains a reasonable gap with the mobile chipsets used in smartphone hardware.

This comes hot of the heels of NVIDIA's release of Tegra X1 super mobile processor, with 256-core Maxwell architecture GPU, 8 ARM CPU cores, delivering 60-frames per second 4K resolution video. With these numbers, the mobile processor market is set to overtake console performance when the prices fall to market adoption levels with feasible price-competitive smartphones. When that happens, people will buy a smartphone, wireless-sync a Bluetooth gamepad with their and play their favourite game, output the display-link to a TV and sound system . They will disconnect and play it on the go whenever they want to leave the house.

Therefore, will console manufacturers refresh their hardware ever so often? Yes and no. We most likely will a hardware iterations but it will be unlikely to be a frequent as you will see like the smartphone market. First of all, the major selling point for consoles are its consistency and stable platform. For end-users it means no regular hardware investment required, and for developers it means a single, predictable target platform to develop for.

Past console generations have shown that consoles will see a hardware refresh several times in its lifecycle. PS3 started with the phat and power - hungry version (with a slapped on PS2 engine under its hood for backwards compatibility). Then comes the slim version, less USB ports, no Linux or PS2 compatibility, no media-card slots and finally the super slim version.  This console cycle will be similar too. So what can we hope to see?

Beefing Up PS4 Computing Power
PS4 uses custom APU from AMD that uses the 28nm manufacturing process. With the ever advancement and manufacturing and improving yields, 20nm will see price/performance and power consumption.

The question I have here is whether Sony will make a ground-breaking move by upsizing the number of computational units on the GPU, thus increasing the headroom for developers to graphical fidelity and other processes such as enemy AI. This will essentially mean we have a PS4 Advanced Edition, where the games will detect and run according to the enhanced specs.

Other Hardware Improvements
USB 3.1 --- to increase throughput for higher performance
Bluetooth 4.1 --- to increase bandwidth to support more devices
Wireless 802.11ac --- to improve signal coverage, stability and throughput
Anti-wobble design --- chassis improvement to ensure no more wobble

So as far as hardware goes, that is all I can think of. Software, well, plenty of firmware improvements! I will leave that for another future post. :)

Juz Finished: Battlefield 3 (PS3)

From time to time, I revisit some of my PS3 backlog, thanks to the monthly PS+ offerings. This time round, I just finished the single-player campaign. Yes, I actually play the campaign story of these multiplayer shooters.

Battlefield 3's stronger suit is actually in its multiplayer but with each iteration, DICE keeps improving the single player story missions. Essentially, most missions are basically boiled down to go here shoot some stuffs, or survive the waves of enemy attacks, sprinkled with a basic narrative or in some cases, plain excuses for Michael Bay-level spectacle.

Nevertheless, I find Battlefield 3's narrative surprisingly better than my recent shooter campaign, Call of Duty : Advanced Warfare. It has several interesting characters and the underlying drama is told through a series of flashbacks during an investigation. DICE did a good job here, especially when more than 90 percent of the shooter audience may not even play the single player campaign.

I hope to see more well-written single-player campaigns from the big studios in future.
My copy of Battlefield 3 is courtesy of my US Playstation Plus subscription.

Juz Finished: Transistor

Transistor, developed by SuperGiant Games is a sci-fi themed turned-based strategy RPG.
I loved the art-style and the music when I first saw its debut at Sony's 2013 E3 Press Conference. The game's art is worked on primarily by Jen Zee, a beautiful style and visual palette. The soundtrack was written and produced by Darren Korb. Both Jen and Darren also worked on SuperGiant Games' previous hit, Bastion back in 2011. Both pieces of work earned the game multiple nominations and awards.

Transistor has been well received by game critics; receiving an 8/10 from GameSpot, 8.5/10 from Destructoid, 9/10 from IGN, and an 8.5/10 from Polygon. It also has an 83 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 47 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews"

Although I was drawn to the game's visual style, its story didn't. It often vague and many times told through information screens or terminals spread out throughout the gameworld. It is here, where I find that reading is not what I want to do when I am in a couch playing a videogame on my TV. If I wanted to read, It's gameplay is interesting and certainly worth a second playthrough mainly because, on my first playthrough, I was just getting the hang of things, learning how things work. The battle system is quite deep because of the different setup combinations that is available to you. Unfortunately the game does not quite do enough to teach you how to play the game, you will need to experiment and discover it for yourself. For some, discovery is the enjoyment in itself.

Even if you don't enjoy a turn-based tactical RPGs, you ought to give Transistor a look. Being part of Playstation Plus gave me a chance to play this for FREE. An experience that led me to discover a bit more about my gameplaying habits too. In short, I still prefer to see a story, and not read them. :P

Games of 2015 - updated

ORIGINAL POST:
2015 games to look forward
Below are some of the games of 2015 that I am looking forward to with keen interest. Not all of them must plays, but definitely worth a look. Here are the 20 games on PS4 in 2015 (not in order).

UPDATE: Here is the list, updated and reordered by status (released, scheduled, tba, post-2015)

Evolve Released and Skipped...multiplayer only
Dying Light  Released and Skipped...maybe purchase used to play in future
The Order 1886 Released and Played
Bloodborne Released and Skipped...maybe purchase used to play in future
Battlefield: Hardline Released and Skipped...No good

Witcher 3: Wild Hunt --- May 19, 2015
Batman: Arkham Knight --- June 23, 2015
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain --- Sep 1, 2015
Just Cause 3 --- Sep 1, 2015

RIME
No Man's Sky
Galak-Z
Bastion
Hyper Light Drifter
Rainbow Six Siege
The Witness
Broken Age: The Complete Adventure
The Banner Saga 2
Starwars Battlefront
Mad Max

Uncharted 4: The Thief's End --- moved to Spring 2016
The Division --- likely 2016

E3 2015 falls on June 16-18 this year, so we can expect more updates by then.

Playstation Plus: April 2015

Playstation Plus April 2015 (North America)

PS4 - Tower of Guns, Never Alone

PS3 - Dishonored, Aaru's Awakening

PSV- Killzone Mercenary, Monster Bag

These goodies will be available once the store update on Tuesday, April 7th.

My picks for April 2015 

Never Alone - PS4

Dishonored

Killzone Mercenary

Juz Played: Mark of The Ninja (steam)

Mark of the Ninja is a side-scrolling action stealth video game 

Developed by: Klei Entertainment 

Published by: Microsoft Studios. 

Announced: February 28, 2012 and

Xbox 360 (XBLA): September 7, 2012

Ever since the days of Metal Gear Solid, Tenchu and Splinter Cell, I have always had a soft spot and keen interest in a good stealth action game. Mark Of The Ninja was always on my radar when it first surfaced in 2012. Unfortunately, on the console front, it was a Xbox exclusive and by that time, my Xbox360 was already unreliable and often red-rings.

After my return to the PC game scene recently, I saw this game on Steam and added it to my wishlist. And yesterday, I saw it on sale, MYR8.75 for the full game (normal price MYR38.00) and DLC. I jumped at it. 

The gameplay is fantastic, stealth action feels fluid and satisfying. So far the game levels feel large, open and beautiful. The water colour art-style has a hand-painted feel, with an American cartoony influence. The game would have been perfect it if had an anime-style but nonetheless, this is one game that I like very much. The only drawback about playing it on the laptop though is using mouse/keyboard. Look for my 'Juz Finished' piece later in the year.