Why I WILL Be Reviewing Mass Effect 2 (Soon)

Recently, I posted an article stating that I wouldn't be reviewing ME Andromeda. (For now, at least.) Citing time and the game's relatively poor reception as reasons, I did note that actually owning and playing the game would make a review highly feasible. With that said, I do own the original Mass Effect Trilogy, making reviews of all three possible, but the one I'm going to focus on is Mass Effect 2.
 

*Cue storytime*

As I'm currently between jobs, I had a lot of time to spend doing things such as focusing on skills I abandoned while working retail, such as programming, design (which I've been doing for over a decade, true story), and of course, creative writing.

In the evenings, when I'm not "working", I played video games. As me and video games have a bit of a bad history (I often struggle to finish games or fully immerse myself in them), and the stress of figuring out what to do about my employment situation, very few games actually held my attention for long.

Mass Effect 2 was a definite exception. The story, characters, atmosphere, and the way the story tailors to your choices made it highly immersive, in a way previously only matched by my other favourite Deus Ex. 

I had a pretty decent length review after passing the halfway point, but due to an unfortunate accident, I unintentionally deleted the entire review. Which means I have to play through the game again to write everything down...again.

Nevertheless, as ME2 is now one of my favourite games, this is not a chore. It may take some time, but a review you will see.

I'll be ending this post with a request for prayer from my fellow Christians. I need to get work, I need a car, and I need my own place. I need to study, and keep building up this site, and so on. So if you can pray for me regarding this, that would be greatly appreciated.

I'll see you again soon with another post, right here on KVRx!

Getting Back to the Bible: Godly Foundations

Unlike most good Christians, I presume, I have quite a bit of difficulty reading the Bible. The mere thought of having to turn to the Good Book and read through it is fraught with emotion, be it stress of having to understand what is actually a very difficult book, or memories of past negative experiences with scripture brandished against me, it's not an easy task.

For many years, I avoided the Bible, save for certain times when I was really desperate and down on my luck, hoping that mere time and prayer would solve my problems. As you can imagine, this didn't do my spiritual life a whole lot of good, as avoiding a problem instead of facing it causes it to amplify greatly. 

It's only living in a terrible situation, forcing me to go to church and be surrounded by other believers, which really forced me back into the Bible, especially once I left the situation and my church behind. The following months left me depressed, lonely, and in a worse state than I'd been in before the whole situation.

At first glance, it appeared as if the church had done more harm than good. It's only now that I realised that it was the closeness to God I experienced through being between other believers and then having to leave that family which had caused my depression, or been one of the factors at least.

The separation made it essential for me to read the Bible on my own in order to keep myself in the Word. I spoke Psalms to myself daily in order to combat my depression, which worked...for a while. Ironically, even though I was reading the Bible, I wasn't reading the whole Bible, just a harmless part of it.

Truth be told, I was scared of what I would find in the other sections. Dipping in and out of agnosticism since my early teens, I fell into that trap once again even though I was mumbling scripture to myself all the time. Above all, I lacked faith.

As the Good Book says, faith cometh by hearing...and hearing by the Word of God. The path to true faith is through scripture, and not just certain parts of it. Entire churches are founded on fragments of books in a whole larger collection that is the Holy Bible, hardly focusing on the entirety of the Word, and all of it's difficulties.

Repeating what I said at the beginning, the Bible is probably the hardest book you'll ever read. It's filled with passages which don't make sense to us, moral codes which are problematic to our Western senses (such as the Levitical laws on slavery, rape, homosexuality), and above all, a sense of futility. We are powerless to save ourselves. Our best efforts count for nothing.

It is through reading this difficult book, however, that we can fully comprehend Christ's sacrifice on the cross for us. The pinnacle of the scripture is the Messiah who came from Heaven, died for us, and rose again. All scripture, be they Old or New Testament, points to Christ.

For that very reason, we need to commit to studying it, living it, consuming it daily. Not for the purposes of earthly enlightenment, but for spiritual empowerment, growth, and salvation.

Why I Won't Be Reviewing Mass Effect Andromeda (For Now)

Certain games are meant to be played in order to be fully experienced. Looking at the early site, one might not think that, but as I was unemployed in the early years and had a lot of time on my hands, I was able to devote hours a day to sit through many video games, fully experiencing their vast content.

Nowadays, being a supposed adult in my twenties, I'm no longer able to afford such luxuries. I really want to review Mass Effect Andromeda, along with several other RPGs. Convincing myself to kill an entire month of time in order to do so just isn't worth it, especially since a YouTube run is not the best way to really review a vast game such as Andromeda.

That, and the game's relatively poor reception, makes this a skip for me. No, we don't only review good game's, but if there was more buzz, it would make it worth reviewing for me.

Once the game's discounted, and I'm able to afford it, I might consider doing a review. This is pretty much how I do reviews these days; I supplement my time spent gaming with doing reviews. It only takes about five minutes longer, whereas with YouTube videos it eats away at valuable time and really isn't worth the time spent.

IN SHORT: It's not gonna happen, for now at least. :)

New Article + Review on Sunday!

Hi everyone. I'm back. We'll be having an article this Wednesday, as well as a review on Sunday. This will be our new format, which I've wanted to do since starting the site back up last year.

The Wednesday article will be a new series I was recently inspired to do. Depending on its success, conceptually speaking, I'll do more in the future.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for our thoughts on a Mass Effect Andromeda review, and whether or not we'll actually be doing it.

Thanks a lot for tuning. I'll see you again soon. God bless. :)

Doom (2016) Christian Review

Blood, sweat and demons. Doom returns in the 2016 iteration for more pulse-pounding, ghoul-slaying wholesome goodness for the whole family.*

*(Not meant to be taken literally.)

Thoughts and Impressions: Never once having a slow moment, Doom 2016 manages to be pretty entertaining if a little bare-bones,. Sure, the dark sense of humour makes things interesting, but after slaying the same demon a million times, it gets a little repetitive.

Storywise, it's pretty much "Destroy all demons and close the gates of Hell", with no real meat given to the story, piles of gore notwithstanding. For what it's worth, it should satisfy those looking for old-school thrills sacrificing emotional depth or satisfying storylines.

Now for those interested, let's get to the Content Guide: 

Content Guide:

Violence/Intense Content: (9)

Doom is a bloody game, to say the least. Heads, arms, legs, torsos are all decimated by gunfire, hand-to-hand combat and explosives, blood spraying out in fountains as limbs are snapped off and severed. High powered weapons blow enemies apart entirely, huge amounts of blood splattering across the environment. Intestines are strewn across the floor. Certain enemies tear themselves apart upon being killed, skin tearing with blood and gore spraying out.

Players can get up close and personal with a chainsaw, tearing enemies open with gore spraying, sawing their heads, arms and torsos in half, The player can also use their bare hands, tearing jaws apart, shattering skulls, ripping arms and legs off. As a special move, they can tear tusks off certain enemies and stab them through the eyes, all with resulting blood. 

Players can enter "berzerk" mode, punching enemies with abnormal strength, causing them to explode into bloody pieces. Hearts are also torn out, and shoved back into the mouth of the victim, causing them to explode, blood and guts shown. Heads are ripped apart, sinew and brains shown briefly along with an explosion of gore.

Certain fleshly growths featured in environments have to be destroyed in order to progress. Pieces of said growths are turned out with blood splatter, gore, and explosions of fluids shown.

Dead characters are shown lying around environments, having head their legs, heads, arms, spines and organs torn out, with lots of blood surrounding them. Certain areas have literal lakes filled with blood, gore, bones, skin, and membranes. Skeletons with viscera still attached are shown, along with blood-stained eyeballs still inside certain skulls to comical effect. (9)

 

Language:

According to the ESRB, there are uses of F**k, S**t, and other profanities. However, in my time with the game, I heard no swear words being uttered at any point.

Horizon Zero Dawn Content Guide + Review

The Hunger Games meets Skyrim.


Release Date: February 2017

Developer: Guerilla Games
 
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Platforms: PlayStation 4

Genre: Action RPG


Content Verdict: Caution Advised (For Bloody Violence and Moderate Language)

Upcoming Reviews + Site Changes

Hello everyone, hope you are all having a good Sunday. This week will bring my Horizon: Zero Dawn review out into the blogosphere. I've also been making good progress with the promised Doom 2016 review, which will also be posted by next week if all goes well.

I want to start teasing this now, since I don't want it to be too jarring a change: My site will have a big change later this year. Instead of being called KVR Gaming, it will now change to KVRx. I've had the idea to expand my reviews from gaming out into movies, series, and other related areas, as well as going deeper into the Christian topics I've presented over the years and sadly never got a chance to fully explore.

This change isn't something I just decided upon recently. It is the definite next stage for the site. Along with the change, I'll have to give the site a new URL. I'll work to ensure that the old one automatically redirects to the new one, so don't worry too much about it.

As I said, this will be happening later this year, so stay tuned for the changes once things get serious! 

Doom 2016 Review Inbound!

April 2017...

Status Report on Horizon Zero Dawn

Letting you guys know that I'm still working (quote procrastinating unquote) on the Horizon: Zero Dawn Review and Content Guide. I've also undertaken another project for the blog which I shan't discuss here as of yet.

We'll leave you with a tease of things to come and say that it will be looking at the standout titles of a particular genre. And no, not the FPS genre. A more involved one.

So thanks for you guys' continued views and support. Stay tuned (as I've told you a thousand times now) for more to come in the future.

Titanfall 2 Content Guide + Review

The other shooter featuring wallrunning and complex AI companions.


Release Date: October 2016

Developer: Respawn Entertainment
 
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Genre: FPS


Content Verdict: Caution Advised (For Bloody Violence)


Quality Verdict: 8.5 (Great)