Look at all...

As a Gamer, this is a really nice time-period to be living. Looking back at current releases and games released in past year (or so), The Evil Within's hype dropped down, Dying Light still looks interesting and I love upgraded mechanics "transfered" from Dead Island games, Batman: Arkham franchise is getting better with each and every sequel (and a prequel), The Witcher 3 was reviewed as "one of the best games ever made" by GameSpot, GTA V for PC was released and Modders are having a blast with it and Assassin's Creed franchise just won't die (talk about milking a cow) as they released a next installment titled "Syndicate"...

As someone who likes playing games, I am thrilled by some announces and disappointed by others.

Back when Assassin's Creed's first game was released, it was good. Game became better (both Story wise AND mechanic wise) with Assassin's Creed II (and it's stand-alone expansions) but then, you could see that developers started choking out when Assassin's Creed III came out. They finished the original trilogy by killing off Desmond, the main protagonist, and then started "milking the cow" I mentioned earlier with each subsequent game that has the name "Assassin's Creed" in it. I didn't play anything past Revelations (except Rogue), and from what I've seen on YouTube (and reading the stories), in my honest opinion, III was mediocre, Black Flag was interesting, Rogue is (although having THE best optimized engine for PC and I can play it, surprisingly) the most boring of them all. The best example of the developers choking would be Unity and (although glitches were Patched), boy, did the reviewers and YouTubers had a field day with that game. Syndicate is a next chapter and we'll see what it brings.

The reason I mentioned The Evil Within is because there was a big ass hype going around the game when it was announced and even bigger hype after first level playthrough was released on the Showcases. Why? Because Shinji Mikami was behind the development process. For those that don't know, Mikami is father of Resident Evil franchise and, using in consideration what CAPCOM did with it, hype was there with a reason. Until the game was released... He was involved in development of Resident Evil 1 through 4 (and that was the last "true" chapter of the franchise) and I gotta say that, as someone who was loved RE 1 through 4, I was disappointed when The Evil Within, which was announced as successor to Resident Evil by some people, didn't turn out to be better than RE4.

Batman: Arkham series is one of the best action games made. I played Arkham Asylum and Arkham City and I liked the games for every minute I played them. RockSteady really did a nice one with this series. Sadly, I didn't play Arkham Origins nor will I play Arkham Knight for reasons I will explain later...

The Witcher is the game that I fell in love with after first few minutes into the game. I've heard my friend talking about the game when it was released back 2007., and being an RPG lover I decided to give it a try and I was hooked ever since. Assassins of Kings made me love the story even more and watching Gameplay videos for The Wild Hunt made me (figuratively) jizz in my pants.

Another fantasy universe I adored is Mass Effect. A complex trilogy (with 3rd game a bit bleaker than first 2) with fascinating storytelling and vivid characters. Played and re-played all games a few times already with plans to do it again soon... A "must play" game for everyone that loves Action-RPG. New game set in this universe was announced back in 2012 with planned release in 2016. Not much is known about the game at this point but, hopefully, it will be awesome as previous ones.

There are really nice games being released but, the reality of the situation is far more grave for most of us. As technology gets better with each passing month, our gaming rigs are becoming more and more out of touch and some of us simply can't keep up. When I bought my PC, it was a mid-entry gaming PC. AMD Athlon64 4000+, 3GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 8600GTS, WD 320GB 7200rpm and it serves me well even now with few modifications. By today's standards, my gaming rig became obsolete about 2 years ago when Crysis 3 was released and my PC started dropping frame rate on the first mission. About a year before that, my 8600GTS burned out and started showing artifacts on screen. After spending some time with inferior 6600GT (borrowed from a friend) I bought GT440 that I am currently using (rest of the configuration was not changed). I did, however, notice that I could not play games the same way I did when I had 8600GTS even though GT440 is newer and superior.

Games have lower FPS, they tend to stutter, loading time is bigger and that makes me think that it wasn't just my 8600GTS that broke that day however, living in a country that makes it hard to find stable employment, it is impossible for me to replace anything. And, once again, awesome games got released and are about to be released. Starting with The Witcher 3. I guess that's one of the reasons why I talked Redub into hosting these streaming sessions. Seeing how some streamers earn, literally, shitload of money and the fact that I love playing games as much as them, I figured that I will get to be as half as entertaining as they are at some point.