Game of the Year 2013

My game of the year 2013 is Half Life 2. Yeah, I know, I'm several years out if date. How, I hear you (not) ask? Well.... My friend Philip and I are collectively in possession of both an Oculus Rift headset (kindly purchased as a gift by my wonderful missus) and a Razer Hydra motion controller. It has made First Person shooters into something else. Another friend of mine, who doesn't play too much in terms of FPS was making reflex-shots to the heads of Civil Protection at 50ft for fun, consecutively. I thought it was a fluke until Phil and myself tried, and achieved the same results. Now, I'm not a huge Half Life 2 fan, I played it when it came out, and I played it again when everyone insisted upon it, and it did nothing for me. I stopped playing after about an hour both times; bored of sub par graphics and what I considered to be a melodramatic and corny story. Yes, some of you will hate me for saying it, but I thought I'd have more fun attempting to determine the Ph of my stomach acid with a piece of 2x4 and a flannel made of litmus paper. But, alas, we hooked up the Oculus and the Hydra, and it was jaw dropping. Every kill, every movement of the hand, and every lean round a corner makes you feel like a cross between James Bond and Jason Bourne, but sexier and better in bed and able to drink more mead and have a better beard and such. It's all personal and relative I suppose. Anyway, of topped everything I've played this year, even with the hit and miss hand tracking and crap resolution. I mean, you check the back of your hand to see your health! And you check the side of your gun to see your ammunition! And it's in augmented reality! And it's awesome!

Ok, I admit, I may have gotten a little over enthusiastic and nearly broken my mate's monitor/chairs/floor with that over enthusiasm, but it was fucking amazing. It straight up pisses on any FPS this year, including PS4/Xbone stuff. And this is coning from ME about a game I DON'T EVEN LIKE. Bare that in mind when you consider the future of what you're planning to have in your living room/games room/rape dungeon. (You might have to have enough space to beat a friendly vortigaunt to death with a crowbar, and don't forget, you need to NOT melt a hole in the bottom of your Oculus with a lit joint you've been passed to smoke. It'll devalue it and you won't be able to sell it at Christmas. You as in 'one'; the collective term. Not me personally. I wouldn't know anything about that. Especially the joint part)

Console Wars. (Sigh, fucking stupid name)

So, I'm just concerning myself currently with the fact that my crushingly-powerful mega PC's motherboard has died, and that this week, there are new things in videogames; namely the new consoles. Times like this don't come around very often, so I'm just sort of checking GameSpot/IGN and other news outlets like Kotaku on a dozen-a-day basis in the hopes that PEOPLE WILL NOW STOP ARGUING ABOUT WHICH IS BETTER BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THEY'RE BOTH RUBBISH. Well, not rubbish in the traditional sense, as in rubbish for the foreseeable future, oh no, I mean just a bit rubbish now in that there's nothing to play on them. A bit like having a cannon installed into ones' chest but realising that the ammunition for it hasn't been properly developed yet, so you just sort of sit uncomfortably at social events answering awkwardly probing questions about its calibre/muzzle velocity/future potential (which you can't answer because you don't know). Anyway, my point is that this is how the launches have gone down:

PS4 launch lineup - couple of interesting bits and bobs, user interface seems nice, online works. Mostly bob games really though.

Xbone launch lineup - couple of interesting bits and bobs, mostly marketing crap like Ryse, but already has the best racing game in existence. Most of the other stuff is bob though, and it can't play mp3s (my mums PC can).

Which one should we buy, I hear you (read:absolutely no one) say? Fucking neither. Wait until April when the good games are out, you dickheads.

And for anyone not from Rochdale, 'bob' means 'sub-par even with potential'. If it's capitalised, it may also be short for Robert, I've been lead to believe.