Hello everyone. In this new segment of the blog, we are going to highlight some of the games that the staff (currently just myself and Richard, who kindly joined on board a few weeks ago) have been playing recently. This will give a good idea of how our gaming world has been in our off times and hopefully spark some discussions with you guys as well on the emails or comments.

Battlefield 1

Ah, I have nothing but praise to give this game. It has been such a steady launch compared to Battlefield 4 that it feels night and day almost. The game also looks incredibly sharp and the sound play is amazing. I currently play it on my HP monitor with a PC build I did a long time ago. Though I am unable to get to 1440p with that build, I still do play at 1080p on max settings and it is probably the most graphically enhanced multiplayer game that I have had my hands on. Playing with headphones also changes up the whole game, too, since not only are you more encouraged to talk with your teammates, which I think is an absolute must for a team-based game like this if you are trying to secure capture points, but the game just feels better with surround sound.

Classes I am playing include the assault class, equipped with a handy submachine gun, the M1911 pistol, an anti-tank grenade, and anti-tank mines. I also have incendiary grenades equipped. For the sniper class, I alternate between my favorite rifles, but I do have the M1911 pistol again, the telescope gadget thing, a flare gun, and an impact grenade.

Half-Life 2

This one kind of caught you by surprise didn’t it? I hardly see anyone playing the game anymore, but I gave it another shot after my first run with the game back in 2005. Gosh, this game is still as fantastic as it ever was. The visual side is lacking, of course, but it still impresses me that a game with this much physics debuted in 2004. How crazy is that? The game came shipped complete with fire effects, physics handling, and ragdoll effects. That just sounds absurd since it was such an early stage in the gaming world. But still, that was 13 years ago, and we have come a long way in gaming since then. It is actually quite nice to go back to older games and see how much we have evolved since then.

Anyway, I just got back from the bridge level in Half-Life 2. That was a level I found harder than most to figure out; I’m not sure why. But it is nostalgic because I had to go find a YouTube tutorial to help me get through it, which reminds me of the days where I would go days without playing the game because I couldn’t solve the puzzle, until finally I did and it seemed all the more rewarding to play the game.

This is playing the game right after re-playing Portal 1 again, which had some of the most memorable puzzles in a game. I think after Half-Life 2 I am going to give the series a little break, meanwhile playing through Portal 2 again, and then hop back on to Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two. I am pretty excited to be playing some of Valve’s most classic collection games again.