I bought Battlefield 4 within the last few months. I know, I am not exactly up to date there, but the game has received a number of free updates and, in the process, become a whole lot cheaper and got much more bug free along the way. That was all enough for me to jump in – especially when I saw that Battlefield: Hardline (the latest entry in the series – a spinoff from a different studio) was struggling commercially and critically.

The game, instead of being a war time epic between East and West, as they usually are, pits police against bad guys. Good vs evil in a modern, relatable scenario (avoiding any current political issues about how “good” members of the American police force might or might not be.) The game lacks the scale of the classic Battlefield games and the environments, too, are much more intimate and city based. That factor was a major downfall for the game.

Metal Gear Solid has always had incredible gameplay, even if the story and nonsense fiction behind it all has always grated with me a little bit. Ok, well, quite a lot. But when the game is ticking? When all of those component parts are all working together there’s very little else that compares. Over the years, then, people have pined for an online Metal Gear game. They want to take that gameplay and use their skills online versus other people.
Metal Gear Solid 4 was the first with online gameplay. It was a lot of fun, if a little bit rough around the edges. It was not quite up the standards you might expect of a Metal Gear game in terms of stealth, but the foundations were there for something good. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain has a revamped system but it won’t be available until the base game has settled down for a couple of weeks. We wait with baited breath.

The most incredible thing is happening in gaming. It started on mobile phones and simply involves clicking things. Clicking to collect things. Clicking on coloured blobs and.. well.. not much else.  It makes sense though; for those people commuting on trains or buses often don’t want to commit a lot of time to something, be it gaming or reading. These clicking games simply allow you to kill a bit of time without committing much brain activity to it.

These games, however, have started to infect other gaming spaces. The PC, so often seen as the bastion of the hardcore gamer with their 4X strategy games and political simulators, have really taken to these games and more than one of them sit among the top played games on Steam every single day. There is an addictive nature to them that isn’t replicated elsewhere and a simple charm that means it’s just a little bit of fun.

Modding is a strange thing in the world of PC gaming. For years it has existed as a fairly underground thing; something would be game designers would do in their spare time, and something that only the very hardcore would consider doing to their games. When Steam came it seemed even more obscure, until the Steam Workshop took off with its support of a few games, most notably Skyrim.
The Steam Workshop allows players to upload their mods to Steam and distribute them for free. Players can then “subscribe” to mods which automatically download and apply themselves to the game. Valve, the owners of Steam, threatened briefly to start charging for mods, given the popularity of the service. The backlash was astronomical. Such was the force of the pushback from the community that Valve shelved any plans they had and allowed the workshop to continue unaffected. PC gamers are often very vocal and precise in their complaints and, given they were the driving force behind the success in the first place, they were well within their rights.

As games have sought to become more and more realistic over the years they have only succeeded in doing so in one capacity; visually. Games are more and more impressive to look at, opting to pursue real life graphics instead of stylised ones that the new technology can offer. The games themselves though are not any closer to being realistic portrayals of anything, yet alone war. The Armed Assault series, though, has always sought to be a little more realistic.
One gunshot will take you down, and you’ll be relying closely on your team mates for support. They can heal you, well only the medic can, but you’ll be having to work closely together as a team. Communication is key – calling out precise locations of enemies is crucial as is having excellent accuracy. The maps are enormous, the travel options are extensive but you need to patient; this isn’t Call of Duty. This is Armed Assault.