The King of Gaming Fists

     Of course if I'm going to throw Soul Calibur in the mix, it cannot go unnoticed that the video game Tekken was one of its great influences. Fighters from all around the globe gather together to face each other in one great tournament. This game isn't your simple button smasher and the characters surely don't necessarily mimic each other. Each fighter has their very own unique fighting style along with a personality to match. That's one of the beauty parts to this game is that everyone has their own favorite character. This isn't a battle of the hero versus everyone else. This is a story of an army of individuals with a goal in mind and their only path to victory is to fight through the hardships. 

A Tale of Soul and Sword

     Only once in your life will a game come along and change the way you think about life. Soul Blade was such a game. Depending where you are from and where you played it you've might've known it as Soul Edge. The game itself became very popular that it spawned a type of remake that went on to call itself Soul Calibur which included most of the characters from the original. Soul Calibur has gone on to spawn a series of highly successful games, especially those that have been major game changers in the industry. Along with the highly successful Tekken video game series, both Soul Calibur and Tekken have gone on to evolve together in many ways. They're both developed by Namco and both have a unique fighting style game play. Whereas Tekken is a more Martial Arts hands on approach, Soul Calibur decided to go the weapons route. Of course, there are a couple of things that separate these 2 games. First and foremost are the cast of characters, Soul Calibur has always been the one to add a special and Unique character to each game that gave the player an incentive to play. The cast of characters have spanned across mulitple Universe's from Zelda's Link, comicbook hero Spawn to even Star Wars' Darth Vader and Yoda. Secondly, Soul Calibur was one of the first of it's kind to implement a full character creation option. This meant that you could take almost any character in your imagination and literally create it into a possible fighting figure. It's obvious that I am a big fan of this game and for good reasons. Aside that it is one of the first games that I ever truly fell in love with, the story behind the series is just so breath taking that it could spawn an entire book series of it's own. For this reason I rated Soul Blade a 10 out of 10. Even though it's graphics are dated, the gameplay alone is worth hours of fun. This game is available for the PS1 and Arcade.

My First Fantasy

     It's an oldie, but a goodie. Final Fantasy 7 is arguably the pinnacle of the final fantasy series, so much so that it is the only game that spawned a movie and a remake. No Final Fantasy game has ever been the same or had the same characters and yet we still see Cloud Strife, Sephiroth, Tifa and Aeris referenced in a few other games, especially in pop culture. Not bad for a game that was released in 1997. This game was hailed as the video game that launched the success of the original Sony PlayStation as a serious console. It was your standard RPG (role playing game) in the way that it was a quite diversified cast of characters (a few who spawned their own series) that come together to battle a common enemy for their own personal reasons. Its battles were turn, strategy and hit point based. As for what made this game different is what is really special. A non-linear, open world story backed up by some of the best animation and character development that no one had seen at the time. Never have I cared so much about each individual character's story. Each one tugged at my heart and nerves and kept me on edge, even as I was battling hardcore monsters I felt the need to survive for the good of the planet. For those of you who don't remember, the world of Gaia is run by this Super Corporation named Shinra that aims for world domination and these eco-terrorists named Avalanche try to stop Shinra from literally destroying the planet. In their conquest to stop Shinra, Avalanche finds out that a cloned super soldier named Sephiroth attached himself to the planet's life stream and used his power to call upon the power of "Meteor" to destroy all life from existence. I know it sounds a little out there, but believe me when I say that the story is seriously intriguing. It was definitely one of my best memories as a kid. Although this game is dated, I still rate it at a 9 out of 10 and that has only to do with the little annoyances in the story cut scenes that cannot be skipped. This game is available for the PS1, PC and iOS as well as a long awaited remake that will be released for the PS4.

I Love the Nite Life

     The review a lot of you have been waiting for is finally here. The game Fortnite, it is not out yet , but I am one of the game testers before it hits stores. Believe it or not I am currently under a non-disclosure agreement with this game, so once it has been read, it shall be placed under a private status until the game is finally released. There isn't much I'm going to reveal and keep in mind that updates and changes are constantly being made to this game so anything I could possibly say that might be a spoiler alert, could no longer be relevant at the initial release. So the game starts off as you are one of 4 survivor classes, either a soldier, constructor, ninja or outlander. You battle your way through the zombie horde known as husks. Your mission is simple, to survive. Destroy the city around you to gather 3 important materials, wood, brick or metal. Metal obviously being the stronger one, you use the materials to build a base of operations to protect yourself and your goal from barrage of threats, setting traps and simple architecture to outsmart your enemy. This game is so much fun and a complete addiction. It's somewhat open world and you can do almost anything and of course there are always hidden dangers along with hidden rewards. The level of difficulty for this game is all up to you. You can either play alone or play in a group and work together to defeat the oncoming army of mutants. There are tons of weapons and a lot of unique ways to set up traps for enemies to fall prey to. I rate this game an 8 out of 10, and again remember that this is just my initial review, there have been some updates to this game that causes this rating to fluctuate, but so far I definitely see good things coming from this game. So far Epic Games has announced that this game is going to be only available for PC but they may consider a console release later in the future.

 NOTE: I was lucky enough to score a few game keys for this game, I've already given out a few, but I do have some left, first come, first serve.

The Clash

     Lest we not forget, mobile games have come really far into the serious gamer industry. What started off as simple blocky numbers games such as Tetris or Snake from old flip phones to high quality, high definition games such as Plants VS Zombies or Clash of Clans. Now, Clash of Clans is a perfect example of a game that can cause quite a controversy. Within my own social circle, I've lost friends over this game. Clash of Clans is a strategy based game where you are the chief and you command a village of barbarians, giants or archers to attack other villages in favor of loot such as gold or elixir. You can defend yourself by teaming up and joining a clan with a bunch of your friends, co-workers or just a random group of people from all over the world. You go head to head with a somewhat equally ranked group in what is known as a clan war and each player gets 2 chances to attack another player's village from the rival clan. Which ever team scores the most damage or stars to the enemy team, wins. This game is totally based on strategy and team work...and this is the part where I lost friends. In a game such as this, it's easy to lose yourself in the game of too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Sure enough, I had a couple of buddies who were totally invested in this game and thought they both had equally superior ideas on where the clan was supposed to be headed to advance our attacks in war. So much so that arguments got heated and they started splitting the clan in 2. From one clan we became 2 and both long time friends refused to speak to each other. Everyone has since patched things up and I had to be the one reminding everybody "It's just a game!" It can happen. We still play Clash of Clans, but now we have only one leader and no one tells anyone how to play and so far we've had no problems. I know mobile games get a bad reputation for micro transactions and pay to win and in all honesty, Clash of Clans is no different. You can purchase gems, gold or elixir and it can definitely aid you in advancing your village more but understand that the more you advance your village, the more advanced enemies you will face as well. Taking all of this into account, Clash of Clans is still a force to be reckoned with and totally fun. It was ranked as one of the top 5 downloads of 2013 and has made it's founding company millions of dollars. I rank this mobile app a 7 out of 10. Some army camps may be a little bit too overpowered and it does feel that although a player may be at my rank, their defenses were more than likely bought making any attack on them impossible. So aside from a few balancing issues, Clash of Clans is a game that always keeps updating and there is no sign of it stopping from progressing into a legendary game. This game is available for Android and iOS devices.

The Battle of a Lifetime

     Battlefield 2...the game that made me late to work, late to school and late to life. Friends would invite me out to dinner or any type of social gathering, I was always the last one there. Sure, I would lie. I'd say "I was feeling sick" or "I was busy with homework." After a while you can only use so many excuses until people start getting sick of it and just stop asking. This game wasn't an addiction, it was an experience. Admittedly, I played this game so much that I was really good and was ranked as one of the top players on many servers. So much so that some players would leave a server, because they knew I would dominate. The story and game play were simple. It was a first person shooter set in World War 3 between The U.S., P.L.A. (People's Liberation Army of China), M.E.C. (Middle-Eastern Coalition), the European Union and Russia. This was the first multiplayer game I ever played and thank goodness for that, because it also turned out to be one of the best games I ever played. In 2005 and 2006 it was named best multiplayer game of the year by many game critics. This was before Call of Duty was ever the game it is now. Even to this day it has a huge cult following by fans who wish to resurrect everything that was perfect with this game. There are currently more modern adaptations of Battlefield with better graphics and design but by no means as good as the original. The maps they add to the modern version of the game are just taken from this game purely because they were just that good. I may be biased, because I do have fond memories of this game, but they weren't all good. BF2 did suffer from it's share of connection issues, glitches and hackers that made my playing life, hell. When all is said and done, this game forced you to play as a team or else suffer the consequences of a loss. I rate it a 9 out of 10 due to problematic design features. This game is only available on PC.

The Skyrim is the limit.

     So what can I say about a game that has not been said? It's near perfect! From the art to the music and an enthralling story line, Skyrim easily became a force to be reckoned with. All the games in the Elder Scrolls Series have been amazing but Skyrim has arguably been the one to push the limits further in an open world environment. The ability to go hunting, battle nomadic bandits and wage war against menacing dragons was every kid's dream since the time of pure imagination. The story begins as you're on your way to your execution, at which point a dragon shows up and interrupts the party. You find yourself in the middle of a civil war between an honorable but politically damaged Empire or the patriotic natives of the north that refer to themselves as Stormcloaks. You create your character to any image you'd like from all the different races that exist throughout Tamriel and you journey all the while building up your character's power, reputation and abilities. You may choose the path of a thief, wizard, warrior or even a deadly assassin. From the large array of weapons, armor and spells, there is no end to the amount of fun that one can achieve. I personally have been playing for over a year and invested many hours into this game, but that's the beauty of the game. No mission is ever the same and the challenges keep on coming. The thought that went into the development of this game is just astounding. This is why I chose Skyrim to be the first game in my list of many to review. I give it a 9 out of 10 simply because there are a few minor glitches in the game that have not yet been worked out but I'm just nitpicking. Skyrim is available on PS3, XB360 and PC (my fave to play on)