One Single Line of Dialogue Highlights the Best Part of The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 is a massive sweeping fantasy tale, that spanned over 150 hours for me to complete. I recently finished the game, and was very surprised by one fact. There was one thing that had more of an impact on me than anything else in the game, one thing that tied up Geralts journey as a character. We'll get to the specific line in a bit, but first we need to cover the relationship that Geralt and Ciri hold. I will warn you that significant spoilers on the end of the Witcher 3 lie ahead, so read on at your own peril.

Through much of the story of Witcher 3 Geralt spends his time on the trail of Ciri, a young woman that is basically a daughter to him. As such, you spend most of the game one step behind trying to piece together the path that Ciri took while also playing the elusive young woman herself at a few different points. This is the driving force behind Geralt in the game, although there's much more going on within the world Geralt's only worry is the safety and well being of Ciri.

With this fact in mind, it actually altered some of the choices I made through the story. For example, there's one plot-line in the city of Novigrad that has you hunting down a crime lord named Whoreson Junior. During the process of all this you find out what a terrible person Whoreson is, a person who enjoys sexually torturing women to death. You also find out that during the time Ciri interacted with him, he may have done something to harm her. While none of this is confirmed, the fatherly love that Geralt holds for Ciri prompted me to immediately end the life of Whoreson Junior.

It was a knee jerk reaction that I had in an instant because of the thought of what the man might have done to another character. This man needed to be gone from the world of The Witcher 3. It's not exactly commonplace that a game has this strong of an emotional response from me, and I was amazed with The Witcher 3 when it happened multiple times. As much as I'd love to go on and on about all the emotionally impactful parts, the point I have here is to highlight the incredible job Witcher 3 does with the father daughter bond of Geralt and Ciri.

Once you finally find Ciri and bring her back from The Isle of Mists, you begin the final stretch of the game. After the huge event of the Battle of Kaer Morhen, Geralt gets some quality time with Ciri as they mourn over the loss of a friend. Over the next few quests and plot lines, Geralt has five different choices regarding Ciri thrust upon him. The girl is having an incredibly hard time coping with everything and there are multiple occasions where Geralt gets to decide how to deal with Ciri. This can result in a warm fatherly approach, versus a cold disapproving father approach. For example, let me show you the snowball fight scene. This is moment where Ciri is frustrated and unsure of what to do next and how to do it. With the positive choice you get an incredibly heartwarming scene where Geralt tries to cheer Ciri up in the only way he knows how. Just watch.

Another scene involves Ciri upset with being deceived by the elf Avalla'ch, once again you can see the unique relationship held between the two and even more so the father, mother, daughter relationship the two hold with Yennefer of Vengerberg. Again it's easier to just show you; 

These two choices, and the three others involving Ciri decide the strength of her resolve at the end, as well as the chances for her to survive which leads to one of three major endings for you. I hope this can highlight the intense loving relationship that the two have. After all, Geralt spends 50-60 hours of the game merely on the hunt for Ciri, putting up with countless headaches and problems in order to find her. The way Geralt feels about her, shines through in both the dialogue choices as well as his facial expressions. The interesting thing is, that this holds true whether you pick the warmer or colder option on how to deal with her.

The two ways of dealing with Ciri create very different experiences for the player and a very different interpretation of the relationship between the two. The colder way gives you an impression of a Geralt that cares for Ciri deeply, but has no idea how to treat her like a father and feels uncomfortable with that fact. Feeling detached from the child he used to know, he feels disappointed with some of the brashness that Ciri approaches situations with and wants to ensure that she gains the skills and knowledge she'll need to survive. On the flip side, the warmer approach denotes a Geralt that sees a Ciri who has taken completely after him, and knows how to be the father figure that she needs as her real father was never there. Both approaches are valid, and both develop an incredibly deep but different relationship between Geralt and Ciri. 

Now that we've covered that, we can fast forward to the ending of the game. After the final conflict with the Wild Hunt, events find you at a tower where the cold winds of another world are blowing in threatening to drown the world in a giant freezing storm. At this point Ciri explains that because of the power of her elder blood she's the only one that can save the world from this fate. This realization is a huge shock to Geralt and something that has a huge impact on him, as you see his emotions get thrown into a state of chaos. It's in this moment that you have a dialogue choice as Ciri is preparing to enter the portal to the other world. This choice is where Geralt desperately says, " Don't do this... to me. Please. Not now." It's at this moment that we realize, Geralt isn't the main character of this story. He's a supporting one. Here's the ending in full, note that this is the ultimate 'good' ending. With the happiest story tones wrapping up here. Each ending of The Witcher 3 I feel does some good things in their own way, but I may go into that another time. 

Ultimately the choice in the end is Ciri's, and it's up to you as Geralt to support Ciri on her path how you can. But in this moment, you see a usually emotionally toned back Geralt break. His daughter is leaving, possibly going to her death and everything he's done will be for naught. After all, it's not the fate of the warring countries or the lives of non-humans that Geralt is truly invested in during this journey, it's the life of his daughter who is the single most important thing in his life. The time he spent with her was a reminder of the love that he held for her. 

This single line of dialogue ties up the relationship between Geralt and Ciri no matter what approach you took to dealing with her. Like I said earlier, it's an important moment of clarity for the player in which we realize that we've merely been someone on a quest, on the trail of the real main character of this plot. Which can explain a lot about the pacing of The Witcher 3. Of course, I don't want anyone to think this is a bad thing. It's an incredible moment, one where we realize the powerlessness that we have as players at the end. Yes we found Ciri. Yes we altered the course of the war. Yes we defeated The Wild Hunt. But in the end, we are powerless to stop the most important person to our character from leaving to her possible death. You do have an impact on the outcome of course, but this is in how you build your relationship with Ciri, how you treat her as she struggles to figure out how she deals with the fate she's been dealt. In that moment, you see Geralt become emotionally broken and powerless, with even Ciri stating " What would you know about saving the world? You're just a Witcher." 

Herein lies the beauty of some of the final moments of The Witcher 3, and what I believe to be one of the finest parent-child relationships in any game I've played. It builds up the level of care and love Geralt has through Ciri throughout the game, illustrating the lengths he goes to in order to ensure her safety. Then it yanks the rug out from under you, and reminds you that Ciri is her own woman and you don't get to decide what she does no matter how much you might want to. In a game that so intimately features player choice, it's a stark reminder that as players and as people we don't always have control over what others do, even when those people are important to us and our characters.  

The Inexcusable Thing Batman Arkham Knight Does

Arkham Knight is the latest in big budget, highly awaited AAA releases this year. It's released to mostly critical praise across the board. I myself finished the game last week, and very much enjoyed it overall. In terms of storytelling it's easily my favorite of the Arkham series. However, there's one serious serious issue I had with the game. One inexcusable thing I can't look past, and honestly I'm amazed that more people aren't upset about this factor. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Arkham Knight, although admittedly those Bat-tank sections were a little rough.

The main reason that I play video games, that I've always played games is to experience the storytelling that only video games can give me. Admittedly, it's a little hard for me to justify purchasing a game where the focal point is multiplayer. I love seeing storytelling in games evolve, and the different ways that we can experience that story. Whether it's the subtle storytelling of Bloodborne or the text-heavy storytelling of a Final Fantasy game.

Not to keep you in suspense of the point of this article any longer, as much as I like the story of Arkham Knight, it does something inexcusable by blocking off the true ending of the game with collectibles.

The true ending of Arkham Knight has a pretty important plot point related to the end of the game. Without spoiling anything, it adds an extra wrinkle into the ending that could change your perception, and is pretty enjoyable to boot. With that said, it's incredibly disappointing that so much time grinding away on Riddler trophies has to be spent to see the whole story. Now I know what people say, by the game blocking the ending off it gives you more incentive to see the ending and is able to make your experience even longer. Unfortunately, Arkham Knight is a prime example of over-development. Adding too much content to your game that doesn't really contribute to the overall message.

Now I'm fine with the Riddler Trophies being in Arkham Knight, I think they can be a fun diversion for someone wanting to find all 243 of them. I cannot stand the idea that an important part of the story is sealed off behind optional objectives in the game. In my opinion this has the potential to stop a lot of players from finishing the game out, and seeing the full message that the entire story provides. Indeed a lot of players may not even realizing what they're missing out on because they just don't make it to the end. This holds especially true for a game like Batman, which is such a high profile release that many people that have minimal experience with games will play it.

Herein lies the integral problem that upsets me. The fact that you can be restricted from seeing the full picture of a games story, by completing menial tasks. It is true that many of the side quests hold meaningful story content though. But this doesn't excuse what I think is a horribly poor design choice on Rocksteady's part. In this sense the ending can become much less meaningful, as people flock to YouTube to watch it instead of making their way to the end. Which makes sense as Arkham Knight isn't necessarily a short game, a lot of people may not be willing to put in the time or have the ability to put in the time to do everything and see the secret ending.

Another problem arises here, with the player getting a sense of invalidation of everything they've done to complete the game. When you spend twenty hours beating the story of Arkham Knight, and expect to get a satisfying ending you don't want to "beat the game" and then be told you have to do a ton of extracurricular activities to see the whole picture. For some players I imagine, this could lend a sense of feeling less accomplished for what they have done in the game already.

As much as I enjoyed Arkham Knight as an overall package, the design choice of locking the ending away just doesn't sit well with me. So much so, that I feel I had to say something about it. I can see why a developer may do it, in an effort to provide players with more content and elongate the experience they have. However, I feel that many players like myself may feel a bit upset at this fact. At this point in my life I don't have a lot of time to play video games, and when I choose a game that I want to invest my time in there's a hope that when I put forth the effort to finish the story I can see the whole picture and get the full message that game wants to impart. By no means did the ending being blocked, totally ruin my experience with the game but sadly it did put a bit of a damper on my exuberance upon completing the game itself.

A Goodbye to Satoru Iwata

As you may understand at this point, video games have been a huge part of my life ever since I was a child. For myself and many others, we grew up with games. We played them through our child-hood and as we grew into adults.  This especially holds true with Nintendo, which is nearly a Disney equivalent of video games for many young people these days.

Just this past Sunday July 12th 2015, the gaming industry received sad news as one of the most incredible visionaries of it's ecosystem passed away. Satoru Iwata, the President and CEO of Nintendo has passed at the age of 55 due to a battle with cancer. It was very sudden and unexpected, and as we can see days later by the outpouring of tributes and kind words, Iwata was a man that made an overwhelmingly positive influence on the art form we love.

Iwatas influence on gaming and Nintendo was massive, he started as a programmer for the company HAL Laboratories in the late 80's where he would eventually be named president of the company in 1993, working on games like the Kirby, Earthbound, and Balloon Fight series. Following his career he would then be named director of Nintendo in 2000, and then finally as president and representative director in 2002, the first president of the company outside of the founding Yamauchi family. Besides his impressive resume, Iwatas lasting legacy on gaming can be seen in the wonderful experiences he helped to create and the unbridled joy he brought to the business at every opportunity.

 Satoru Iwata held a belief that video games were something fun at heart, and that everyone should be able to experience the joy that games can bring to our lives A noble sentiment to be sure, even if some may dispute the fact. Iwata always brought a smile and the feeling of joy to his work, and to fans. Throughout the years he led Nintendo through some drastic changes, Nintendo a company that had been stuck in their ways for years. Believing that what they did was best.

Since 2002, we've seen huge change out of the company under Iwatas leadership. Nintendo released the DS, changing the handheld game forever and introducing a new world of touch controls that changed how we play. A few years later they would introduce the Wii and revolutionize the face of video games, making them appeal to a broader audience than ever seen before.Even recently in the last year we've seen huge surprises from Nintendo, with Amiibo and the partnership with DeNA to make mobile games. The point is, Iwata wasn't afraid to be different to make the experiences we get from Nintendo as best as they can possibly be.

There's a quote from the late president that has been all over the internet this week, "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." Iwata understood what video games were more intimately than most people, which is why he had such dedication to what Nintendo did. We saw the advent of Nintendo Directs that usually featured Iwata heavily, he wanted fans to know he was there and that he cared. How many CEOs of billion dollar companies can we name by name, let alone feel like we knew personally? Satoru Iwata was welcoming, warm. He wanted to share Nintedo's creations with us, he was excited to share their wonderful imaginative creations with his fellow gamers. 

Nintendo games were hugely influential for me, and held some of my absolute favorite experiences of my childhood. From roaming the expanse of Hyrule field in Ocarina of Time, to blasting through asteroids and enemy ships with my Arwing in Starfox 64. These experiences helped form my identity as a gamer and a consumer of entertainment. The games that I play helped breed my imagination. During recess in elementary school my friends and I would pretend we were flying around in Arwings, shooting down bad guys while we made whooshing noises to imitate the ships.

To myself, Nintendo is so special because it captures the very essence and wonder of that childhood imagination. It reminds us all what it is to be pure fun and imagination. Just look at how fondly people remember their experiences with Mario, Zelda, Kirby, and the other titles in the incredible stable Nintendo has. These games and experiences that I had as a child, are what led me down the path I'm on today. I would be enraptured by Majora's Mask as a child, and years later come back to analyze it on the themes of sadness and grief that the game was inundated with. Game like Zelda, Star Fox, and Mario helped to breed a strong passion for gaming withing me and are definitely one of the biggest factors in my decision to work in this industry.

Games are at their best when their inventive and fun, they can be wildly immersive experiences. My ultimate goal is to make games myself after I have a wealth of experience in the industry, and with what I make I want my games to be strange and thoughtful experiences. I want them to make people feel things, and think things. Nintendo holds so many joyous experiences for so many of us, and Satoru Iwata helped get those experiences to us and make them as great as they could possibly be. He was a visionary, that taught us things about not only how we should make and experience games but what video games can mean to us and how we feel.

The industry mourns for him, and the outpouring of support and love for him as been heartwarming. He will be sorely missed, so many of us owe so much to him. As creators, as consumers, as gamers we will never forget the contributions he made. And as a small side note, the day after Iwata's untimely passing a rainbow was spotted over Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. A fitting tribute as we all hope Iwata made his way down the never-ending rainbow road.

Inside Out is the Best Pixar Movie Ever Made

Trying to decide the best Pixar movie is like trying to decide the best dessert at a critically acclaimed five star dessert bar.  We all have favorites, but certain ones resonate with us more than others and it may be different from person to person. Once thing can be sure thought, Pixar makes great movies that oftentimes illuminate things about life and the human condition.

When I saw Ratatouille I was convinced that no other Pixar experience would surpass it for me. The story of Remy and his plight to be a chef was an incredible underdog story, that taught us to follow our dreams and put all our effort in no matter the odds against you. To my incredible and joyous surprise though, I recently saw a movie that rivaled the Ratatouille experience for me and maybe even surpassed it. That movie was Inside Out.

I had been looking forward to seeing Inside Out for a while, but I didn't expect the emotional heartfelt journey that awaited me. Pixar has always been infamous for building incredible movies that make us think, beyond being enjoyable. Every movie they make has a theme or a message behind it, but never before has an animated movie been so much about looking inside ourselves as Inside Out. Even just the name denotes that very thing.

Inside out focuses on a young girl named Riley. A girl who, love hockey, does well in school, has a great family life, and has a happy young childhood all around. Underneath things though, the characters we get to know are Riley's own human emotions. That of; joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. These emotions are characterized as their own beings, entirely focused on that single emotion and instilling that emotion in Riley through a console in Headquarters (or Riley's mind.)

We see Riley grow up and have a wealth of happy memories being developed by the emotions, but when she turns 12 the whole world gets turned upside down when the family moves to a tiny house in San Fransisco. This sees the emotions of the young girl run wild as her life gets much more complicated. Through the lens of humanized emotions given character, we see the mind of a twelve-year-old girl go through  emotions trying to make sense of the change in her life. Inside Out shows us how conflicted and emotionally unstable a developing teenager can be when massive change happens.

Through this brilliant storytelling mechanism, the master storytellers at Pixar walk us through the story of a young girl coping. Inside Out as most Pixar movies is a ton of fun, but on top of that it has a wonderful message to impart to it's audiences. We see the characters travel through multiple parts of the human psyche, including imagination and the subconscious, as well as memory banks. Of course Pixar finds fun ways to play on each of these things, making it funny and heartfelt throughout. My personal favorite scene of the movie includes two characters hilariously trying to scare Riley awake through her dreams.

At various points we see the emotions of other human characters throughout the movie reacting to things that Riley does or things in the world. No doubt, some of the impact and message is lost on me with Inside Out as I believe anyone who is a parent will especially find meaning in the movie.

---------Slight Spoiler Ahead----------

Partway through the movie we see Riley lose the ability of her joy and sadness emotions. Because of this she reacts to things in very different ways. Lacking those emotions it's basically like those have been turned off. Through trauma in our lives, especially when we're younger it may be difficult for us to feel certain emotions. For anyone who's life has undergone a sudden change like myself, I believe we can identify with this. While the movie finds a fun storytelling way to do this, it's something that resonated very much with me. Sudden change like that at such a young age is incredibly scary and numbing, and although I never moved away from what I was used to I did find ways to identify with the movies story.

Growing up I lived a fairly sheltered life, as my parents went through a horrible divorce and custody battle through much of my adolescence I found myself very much without friends throughout middle school and high school. I spent my time with entertainment, as my mother was unwilling to let me go anywhere without being watched, or just spend time with friends by myself. This feeling of loneliness permeates your life, causing you to feel those emotions like fear, and anger and sadness more than anything else. Then at a certain point you lose the sadness too, and once joy and sadness leave you have only the emotions left that can cause you to do drastic things. Being driven by fear and anger causes you to think irrationally, and when you're a developing mind you may not know how to handle those emotions correctly something Inside Out shows perfectly.

The real beauty of Inside Out lies in just that, it shows something that many of us have gone through in our lives. The confusion of growing up and not knowing how to cope, or the confusion of dealing with a child going through that and not knowing how to help them. Pixar has impressed me on many many occasions in my life so far, but never have they created something so emotionally impactful and resonant for me. This is what our entertainment should be, incredibly insightful and meaningful pieces that cause us to think or feel something. Or something we can share with others, that will bring us closer. Which is also what I think Inside Out is, a piece that everyone can connect to and a movie that parents and children and families all need to see.

Indeed, Inside Out shows us the importance of taking time to be with not only the people we love but the things we love to do. In Riley's mind the things that are important to her form into islands. There's hockey island, friendship island, and family island among other things. These are the focal points of her life and what forms the basis for her as a person. We have to embrace the things we love.

Without droning on too much, I'd rather have you see the movie yourself. Let me just say that Inside Out is a masterpiece of animation and storytelling, everything about it is impeccable right down to the execution. It's an incredible piece of cinema that teaches us about the very most inner working of ourselves as humans. It's a piece that everyone young or old can connect to, and a movie you owe it to yourself to see. There's no doubt in my mind at this point that Inside Out is the best movie Pixar has ever made, and if you haven't seen it yet I hope that you choose to do so now. Inside Out is what we should strive to do with our entertainment, and I'm happy that I had the chance to enjoy it.

Persona 4 Dancing All Night Looks Fabulously Wonderful

There are few game series that get me as excited as the Persona series. With that in mind I wanted to take a second to note one of my most hotly anticipated titles of the year. Yes I'm not being sarcastic here, one of my most awaited games involves Persona characters dancing their butts off with disco fever.

In all honesty, when Persona 4 Dancing all Night was announced I like many others was totally skeptical. Looking back on that fact now though, Persona 4 is the perfect fit for a dancing game. I mean just look at this new trailer from E3.

Glorious, completely fabulously glorious. Persona 4s cast of characters are a prime fit for this style of game and so is the world of Persona 4. The original game was a bit of a change for the series, which is traditionally very dark  storytelling wise. While the original certainly had its dark tones (the game is about a murder case after all), the overall tone of P4 is totally goofy. It's a story about a group of teens banding together and learning about each other in the process while investigating a murder mystery. Of course anyone who has played Persona 4 knows that this investigation takes place inside of a mysterious TV world that people get trapped in. After Persona 4 another game came out that involved the gang getting wrapped up a crazy fighting tournament in Persona 4 Arena.

This makes the series easily accessible for a multitude of ideas from here, including P4DAN. In the game the investigation group gets back together to find abducted idols, and in the process ends up in another TV-like world where they have to dance to survive instead of fight. While a bit far fetched in theory, this idea sounds incredible to me. The world of Persona is very malleable, and the team always finds a way to stretch their storytelling muscles. The original Persona 4 is one of my favorite games of all time, and was one of the most emotionally impactful experiences I've ever played. I have high hopes for this new game, of course I myself am a huge fan of rhythm games.

I would encourage anyone interested to take a look at Persona 4 Dancing All Night when it releases in September, the Persona team has an incredible standard of quality in their games and this looks no different.

The final thought I'd like to leave you with is the impression that the Persona 4 games leave on me. Never before have I played a game that just gives me such a feeling of happiness with everything related to it. Persona 4 was one of the happiest games I've ever played, so much so that I put the soundtrack on my phone to cheer me up in times that I may not be feeling top notch. Seeing these characters return yet again in such a fun setting, gives me that warm fuzzy feeling inside. It may sound cheesy, but honestly no other game gives me the feeling that Persona 4 does. Maybe part of that reason is that Persona 4 got me through a really rough time in my life, with serious family issues a terrible breakup and an identity crisis. But that's something to delve into another day, and believe me I will.

Video games can be great escapes for us at times, as well as teach us many lessons. Sometimes as well, they can just be whole lot of fun. That's exactly what I'm expecting out of Persona 4 Dancing All Night, and boy I cant wait to take my favorite characters to the dance floor in another interesting tale. To close play the Persona 4 games if you haven't, they're all well worth it. It's easy to find some character or part of the story to connect to in such a wonderful game. Also, here's a picture to describe my feelings right now.

Unravel Deserves Your Unbridled Attention

This week fans of video games get to enjoy a crazy lineup of the biggest and best games that will be releasing over the next year and a half.  This E3 has been exciting, possibly more exciting than any E3 I've seen in the last 6 years. There have been so many announcements that are exciting to see, but also meaningful to me. 

In a show that officially announced the return of The Last Guardian and the long awaited Final Fantasy VII Remake, I'm amazed to say that neither of those or everything else huge at E3 is my favorite thing I've seen. Little did I know that a wonderful charming surprise lay in wait halfway through the EA press conference. Although I don't necessarily want to call EA's conference a disappointment, it certainly was the weakest of them all. There were high points, but overall I found myself unsatisfied with it. EA went on about sports games and certain features for far too long, and had a lackluster look at the new Mirrors Edge. Of course the ending footage of Star Wars Battlefront blew us all away, but there's one other thing that stirred something within me at the EA conference.

At about the halfway point EA pulled something completely unexpected out of their hat, an incredibly charming and emotional looking game called Unravel. This game completely broke the tone of the conference and the show in general, for a few minutes we changed gears from the violence and explosions, to a much more quiet and low-key adventure. It was this very change that was partly responsible for how incredible Unravel looks. 

You see, Unravel is a game about a small being entirely made of red yarn called Yarny. It's a 2D puzzle-platformer in which you use the yarn from your own body to keep progressing through the game and overcome obstacles to keep Yarny moving. What really drove home Unravel as my favorite new game of the entire show was just how sincere the entire experience felt. 

Our look at the game started with the creative director for the game, Martin Sahlin, coming out to talk about how the game came to fruition and what it meant to him and the team. I'll just let you watch it instead of explaining. 

The entire experience was incredibly sincere, and you could literally see Sahlin shaking on stage he was so nervous. This is where I really started to feel something about Unravel when Sahlin stated, "It was born out of the need to make something more personal, something with heart. The yarn it represents love and the bonds that we make, and it unravels because that's what happens when we are separated from what we love." That moment that we saw Unravel was so different from everything else we saw at the show, and made me feel emotional like I never thought I would when watching a stream of an E3 press conference. 

This brings me to the point of why I'm so excited about Unravel. Of course on one part it looks like an adorably fun platformer but Unravel looks like it could be so much more. If you've listened to my radio show Playing with Perspective, you know I have very strong feelings about what video games mean as art and what they can do for us. Video games have a very special unbounded potential to be incredibly immersive emotional experiences that stick with us, and teach us things about life and the nature of humanity. There are many games that have made me think and consider things more deeply, the first of which was Final Fantasy VII, a topic that I will be touching on very soon .

The point here is that video games have the potential to show the best and worst of humanity, on comment on the very nature of life. Unravel was something that fitted this feeling exactly. Among the flashing lights and in your face trailers, Unravel was a fantastic breath of fresh air. Now a developer shouldn't have to point out the themes and meanings in their games as that's something the player uncovers for themselves, but clearly this project means so much to the team making it. 

As excited as I am for Fallout 4 and Kingdom Hearts 3 and the other huge Triple-A titles of the year,  Unravel was the one game of this E3 that looked like it would truly make me feel something special. Of course I'm totally sure that I am wrong about that, and there will be many wonderful experiences with many of the games from this show. Unravel gave me a special feeling even just by it's trailer, and it's an example of the very reason that I have such a love of video games. As long as people keep making games like this I'll stay wholeheartedly invested in the video game industry. I'm stunned that this game is my favorite game of the entire show, but it's the greatest surprise I could have asked for this year. Take a look at the trailer and see if it means anything to you. 

Time For An Update!

Hello fine folk of the internet, I felt like I should give everyone a quick update here. If you've noticed its been a few weeks since I've been active and I wholeheartedly apologize for that.

With a hectic finals week for the semester, and starting up a brand new season at the amusement park I work for (running an admissions department isn't easy) I've been a bit short on time as of late.

However I'm pleased to say that there will be a wealth of content on the way. I've been playing The Witcher 3 and Splatoon lately, both of which have stirred up a lot of feeling and ideas in me about gaming. Also E3, the most exciting time of the year, is right around the corner. As such, I will definitely have a lot to talk about over the next couple weeks. So look forward to it.

Just a couple exciting notes too. First off, I'd like to tell you about an editorial series that I hope will run for a long time is going to be starting up soon here on Optional Analysis. All I will say at this time, the series will be called Life Lessons. Also exciting , season two of Playing with Perspective has officially started! Our first episode is all about E3, so I hope you'll take a listen here,

https://soundcloud.com/playing-with-perspective/season-2-episode-1june-9th-electronics-entertainment-excitement

Look forward to some exciting news to be forthcoming about Playing with Perspective and YouTube in the coming months.

Cheers,
Hayes