This week I’ll be sharing two games and one show, all of which I enjoyed quite a lot. I’ve played through the Battlefield 1 campaign and a handful of multiplayer matches, and I think this one might be in the rotation for quite a while. In addition I finished watching season 3 of The Fall this week — no spoilers, don’t worry — but if you’ve never watched it I have some reasons why you should. Lastly, I finally got around to playing an indie game that’s been on my backlog for a while — it’s a weird one. Enjoy!

Battlefield 1 – DICE’s latest is a lot better than I expected it to be. Not to say I thought it would be bad — I’ve loved the Battlefield games ever since Bad Company 2 hooked me on the 360 (I dabbled with BF 1942 on a friend’s PC, but that hardly counts). I just didn’t think it would have both a respectable campaign, and a mode as good as Bad Company 2’s Rush gametype. That last part is key — BFBC2’s Rush mode was different from the one they’ve shoehorned into the maps in Battlefield 3 and 4. Bad Company 2 was built around the Rush gametype, and the map design fit with that, creating matches where players would fight on a single front that shifted from one location to the next over the course of the match. It was limited to 32 players on PC and 24 on consoles, but all of those players were engaged in a singular fight that made for some very chaotic gameplay.

Battlefield 1’s Operations mode takes the concept around Rush and blows it out onto larger maps with 40-64 players. The result is total madness in the best possible way. When you see a wave of enemies come running over the hills towards the objective you’re meant to defend, it can be genuinely scary and overwhelming.

The Fall – This show’s third and final season just landed on Netflix and now that I’ve seen it all I can safely say this is a show worth watching — if you have the stomach for it. The Fall follows two main characters in equal measure. On one side you have Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson), a detective working in Belfast to track down a serial killer. On the other, you have Paul Spector, the killer in question.

The Fall portrays Stella Gibson in much the same way the male lead is treated in shows like House, Mad Men, and Rescue Me. She’s a powerful woman who has her way with the people around her and never second-guesses her actions. After all, she’s acting the same way any man in her position would…and she isn’t afraid to point that out. It examines double-standards while wading into an ugly world of sexual abuse and murder, rarely backing off from the terrible things Paul Spector does to his female victims

The Fall also follows Paul as a main character without ever glorifying his actions. Imagine if Dexter wasn’t colored as a hero, didn’t have a code or badguys as victims, but still got the same amount of screen time. We see Paul do terrible things, all the while covering it up with a family and normal life. The cat and mouse game between Paul and Stella is gripping throughout.

The Magic Circle – This indie game by ex-Bioshock devs is an exploration of the give-and-take that comes with long overdue games and the fans that anticipate them. Do the fans have any ownership over the games…do the creators? These questions are explored and torn apart in a hilarious manner, all in a broken, half-finished game world with surprising depth and fun mechanics for a 3-4 hour experience. The gameplay consists of pausing and hacking the various enemies, editing them to follow and fight for you. Eventually you use their abilities to advance past obstacles and sabotage the developer’s plans.

This game goes to some crazy places and surprised me from beginning to end. If you’ve ever followed the tortured development of a game, only to see it cancelled or changed drastically — or you just want a fun way to celebrate the launch of The Last Guardian — The Magic Circle is an eccentric must-play experience.

This week I’m dedicating RRC Digest to the Playstation VR. I’ve had the device for a week and a half now and I have some thoughts! First up, I’d like to talk about the hardware from a perspective I think a lot of people can relate to — going from a Gear VR to a PSVR — rather than comparing it against a Vive or Oculus.

The Hardware – Before getting a PSVR, the majority of my VR gaming was done on a Samsung Gear VR. In the world of VR headsets, the Gear VR is a great way to show people what VR looks like, but it doesn’t leave a lasting impression. The controller situation on Samsung’s device is a mess — I own a million controllers and none of them work, and last I checked, the decent Android controllers were marked up to $80-100. That influenced my game purchasing decisions quite a bit, leaving me with a handful of forgettable experiences that were fun to show off to friends and family members. Beyond that the device sat and collected dust, supporting the notion that VR could be a passing fad like the Wii or Kinect. Continue reading RRC Digest 10/25/16 – Playstation VR, Rez Infinite, Thumper →

This week I’ll be offering up some quick takes on a bunch of different items. I owe you all the rest of my New York Comic Con coverage — which isn’t much to be honest, but it’s worth discussing. Beyond that I have impressions of the first episode of Westworld and my time with Mafia 3 so far. Continue reading RRC Digest 10/18/16 – Dishonored 2, SWTOR, Westworld, Mafia 3! →

As I look to the pile of words below this intro I realize it may be a good idea to split up this week’s digest. Today, I’ll be talking about my time with Resident Evil 7 on Playstation VR. Later, I’ll share my thoughts on Dishonored 2, Little Nightmares, The Old Republic’s new expansion, plus some other tidbits, most likely in a more condensed form.

Resident Evil 7 “Lantern” demo in VR – Capcom’s Resident Evil 7 preview cycle has been a weird one so far. First, they released a surprise demo called Beginning Hour. That demo seemed to ape developer Hideo Kojima’s P.T., which acted as a playable teaser for the now-cancelled Silent Hills. Like P.T., Beginning Hour ignores the traditional gameplay of its survival horror brethren, featuring gameplay that’s more in line with modern indie horror games like Outlast and SOMA. Continue reading RRC Digest 10/11/16 – Resident Evil 7 VR @ NYCC 2016 →

This week I have some overdue words for a new Long Island game shop that has won my heart, and impressions on a new indie game experience called Virginia. Next week is New York Comic Con, so I’ll either have a lot to say, or I’ll be too busy to write anything at all! Stay tuned.

#GameOn – This Miller Place, Long Island game shop has been open for a year but I just discovered it a few weeks ago. It’s about 40 minutes away from me, but compared to the other independent game shops on the island it’s around the corner. I’d like to tell you about the store itself but I think it’s important to give you some context. Continue reading RRC Digest 10/4/16 – #GameOn and Virginia →

I have a lot to say about my topic this week, so let’s keep the life update quick. Firstly, my internet is back and stronger than ever. It only took an army of Optimum Online techs to fix it, but there’s a brand new line running from the street to the modem, so problem solved! Other than that it’s been a week full of Destiny’s Rise of Iron DLC. Let’s get to it…

Rise of Iron is fine, but it’s no Taken King – I like Bungie better when they’re scared. Destiny’s first big expansion, The Taken King, was a dramatic response to the 6-out-of-10 reception that Destiny received in year one. It was rich with content, and rewarded players for their efforts. It was Bungie in damage control mode in the best possible way.

The pre-release talk around Rise of Iron was often about how much confidence Bungie gained after The Taken King and their well-received April Update. This wasn’t really “Destiny Year 3” because “Year 2” was such a fundamentally positive change to the game. But the expansion they’ve released isn’t Taken King, and some of the choices they’ve made to prolong the experience are giving me year one PTSD. Continue reading RRC Digest 9/27/16 – Destiny’s Rise of Iron expansion →

Week 2! RRC Digest is officially underway. It’s a shame I had such a poor week for media consumption. Thanks to a relentless battle with my home internet, a lot of my gaming time has been limited and sporadic. But I did manage to play some of the Bioshock Collection, finally getting around to completing the Burial at Sea DLC episodes. Continue reading RRC Digest 9/20/16 – Internet Outages, Rapture Revelations, and My Favorite Movie of 2016 →