Welcome to the first entry in a weekly (Or close to it) series where I blog about games I’ve been playing. A “Now Playing” game blog, basically. (glog?) Some of the games I mention may get a more detailed post at some point if I have more to say about them, but the idea is a fairly short blurb about a couple games in order to keep this page active and get my opinion on them out on the internet. Enough intro, onto the content!

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS)

This has definitely been the monster taking up all my time (that I’m hunting).  I love that it’s portable so I can play pretty much anytime I have a chance. Waiting for food to cook? Combine some bowgun ammo. Slow moment in a Youtube video or TV show? Go an an expedition. Have to poop? Hunt a pair of monsters and spend at least double the time I really needed to in the bathroom. I know plenty of people complain that it’s not on Wii U or another home console, but I know my time spent on the game would be far, far less if that was the only way to play it.

I was way into Tri, and always played a few of the earlier games, but 4G is by far the best MonHun I’ve played yet. Traveling to new cities keeps returning back to base fresh, the cutscenes are very personal now that they include your hunter, and the online on (New) 3DS works flawlessly for me. I think I put in around 80-100 hours on Tri on 3DS and I’m already almost there on 4G and I can’t see myself stopping any time soon.

I’m currently in High Rank, HR4 online and the first few High offline quests. I just got my first suit of High Rank/S armor: Tetsucabra. I missed this badass looking set the first time around and I’m glad to get another chance to make this relevant. I’ve been using Heavy Bowgun pretty faithfully since I started, and the cool gunner armor is a huge reason for that. While I love gunning with some melee hunters in Multiplayer, it’s pretty painful in single player. I’ve always wanted to main a gunner weapon ever since I first saw the armor for them in MHFU on PSP and I’m glad I finally have done so… I am definitely NOT going to do it again next time though.

Current thoughts on MH4U: The wait, though painful, was worth it!

(And I still haven’t gotten a  Gore Magala plate even after about 15 hunts…)

Helldivers (PS4)

5/5, 100%, A++. I love this game. I figured I’d like it, sure, but holy crap am I deep into Helldivers. Last time I played my PS4 this much was with Wolfenstein, and it has been redeeming the console since the disappointment that was Dragon Age: Inquisition. It takes a generally boring genre and does every single thing it needed to do right to make it awesome. The guns feel distinct, you have to move and aim tactically, there is perfect pacing between fights, and it has drop-in/out multiplayer. So many twinstick shooters just got the arcade rout of making you overpowered and throwing hundreds of enemies at you as soon as you press Start… Helldivers masterfully puts you through an ebb and flow of stress as you go through it’s randomly generated maps.

If an enemy patrol spots you, you have about 1 second to wipe them all out before they call in their usually heavier armed and armored buddies. Generally you only succeed at this about half the time, which is actually involves of my few complaints with the game: Enemies can see you while they’re offscreen and you can’t see them. Occasionally you do get signs of their prescense like shadows or audio cues though, and your handy dandy scanner (That you have to stop to pull up, another pacing tool executed well) will let you know around where the enemy patrols are.

Anyway, I could probably gush for a whole post about why Helldivers is a great game, and probably will later,  but I’ll end it here for now.

Current Thoughts on Helldivers: Very fun solo or with pick-up grounds, but AMAZING with buddies. Don’t write this off as just another twin stick shooter.

 Total War: Attila (Steam)

I’m already running this post longer than I anticipated (There’s a reason Verbosity is at the top of the site), but I had to mention Attila. I’m a huge Total War fan, but Creative Assembly’s games are generally crappy at launch. Attila was a delightful surprise in this regard. I went in wary, and did my research by watching pre-release videos on YouTube and just about all of them echoed the same thing: Attila is good.

It seems to take all the improvements that Rome 2 needed (And mostly got) and ran with them. The campaign is varied per faction with new hordes, factions that have no standing cities but instead move all their buildings with an army, and the ability to fully abandon or raze cities, leaving the land barren for anyone wishing to move in. The battle AI is quite improved from Rome’s launch. It even successfully pulled off an ambush on me while I was defending a siege that turned the tide of the fight and made me lose! No Total War AI has managed to do that without heavy mods before… much less a launch game!

Current Thoughts on TW Attila: Surprisingly low on bugs, and high on fun! Attila sets a new standard for TW launch games even if it is largely based on Rome 2’s patches. A good stand in for Medieval 3, which is what I really want.

Check here next week for another entry, although it will probably be much more light… I’m getting married this weekend!