Missing E3 Hype

E3, the biggest gaming event of the year basically, is around the corner and unfortunately I don't give a flying fuck about it, at all.  I'm not making this post to be all controversial and hate on the show but I'm here to lament how what once was a truly exciting time for me has been reduced to nothing more than a slight blip on my radar.

I remember back in high school I had a group of friends that I'd play games like Counterstrike with.  When E3 rolled around we'd all jump on a Ventrilo server and watch the live coverage and discuss the games that were announced.   I also remember in my second year of university, a friend coming down to my apartment and we stocked up on large amounts of pizza and soda and then watched the event while we played other games, tons of fun.  Even a few years ago, when I had a short stint of living in Sweden, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the conferences live and then spending the best part of the next day talking about the event with friends.  

Even before all this live streaming stuff was popular, back when I was just a wee child, I remember seeing footage on TV from E3 and getting incredibly exciting about the idea of something like that even existing.  I'm sure I gave my parents an earful about how badly I wanted to go to LA to see the show for myself but unfortunately it never came to pass.  

E3 now however is a sad shell of what it once was.  Nintendo have pulled out of the show and this year Sony did the same.  That alone is enough for me to stop caring because I live in Japan and no one gives a fuck about Xbox over here so I have no interest on need to watch a conference from Microsoft.  Sony and Nintendo are doing their own thing at the same time as the show.  I'll just go and watch their shit directly rather than waking up early to catch some bullshit talk from EA or Bethesda.  The last few years have also seen the event marred by various controversy over things like gender, race or identity politics.  I'm trying DESPERATELY hard to avoid any of that bullshit but if the last few years are anything to go by, it means that following the news closely will guarantee that I walk face first into a wall of clickbait bullshit.  If we get through the entire event and there isn't some claim that "X game is racist" or "Y company is sexist" or something like that, I'll eat a shoe

That's not to say I'll be ignoring it completely, once the show is over, the Nintendo Direct done and the Sony thing aired, I'll be sure to at the very least look at a list of games and follow up on things that interest me.  Personally I'm hoping to see some Shin Megami Tensei 5 news during this whole period but to be brutally honest I probably have a better chance of finding a chicken that lays golden eggs.

Fortnite Season 4 and leveling frustrations

If you've been watching the stream you might now that I've jumped on the Fortnite wagon pretty hard.  How could I not when for a while almost every advert I saw was "CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME FREE GAME!"  I wanted to try a battle royale game but PUBG was £15 and looked shit, Fortnite at the very least had some personality.

So it dragged me in really hard with its fast paced game play that was enjoy to enjoy in short bursts.  It also helps that I can just camp in solos while I do housework or work on other things and the occasional fiddle to get inside the zone helps break the monotony. I really enjoyed the the event with the meteor and the map change that came with it too, the game is telling a sort of loose story without words that you have to figure out by yourself by observing small changes to the map.  It's a cool way of doing it that gets a community discussing ideas about what might come next.  

I enjoyed it SO much I ended up dropping 1000 yen on a premium battle pass, which is very out of character for me since I've not payed for a cosmetic since about 2010 but I just couldn't help myself.  The battle pass and the challenges that come with it are a nice mixup to play and without them I'd probably play at lot less.  It's crazy how a simple objective like "get a kill with a trap" can make you want to play over and over again until you get it.  

The big pot of gold at the end of the battle pass is the Omega skin and the "omega challenges" that came with it.  I was hyped for this, I was expecting some really hard shit that would really test my skills but when I unlocked it all it asked me for was to level to 80.  That's not a challenge, that's just demanding my time, and a huge disappointment for all the work it took to reach tier 100 on the pass.  

Still, the good thing about the premium pass is that it spits out enough currency to get the next one for free.  Now that I know what's coming I know that AFKing for exp is something I need to do more of if I want to 100% everything in season 5 but I don't think I'll ever quite forgive Fortnite for this crushing letdown 

Video Games, the Olympics and stupidity

I think anyone who has even a passing interest in video games is aware of how much of a thing e-sports have become.  Most people are familiar with the big competitive games like League of Legends or Starcraft 2.  You probably have heard of certain big events such as Dreamhack in Sweden or the EVO fighting game tournament just to name a couple.

E-Sports have become so much of a thing that they are now being broadcast on TV the same way you'd broadcast any other sports.  When I was living in Sweden a few years ago I watched the Dreamhack Starcraft 2 tournament on the TV as it was happening live and on the plane to Rome two videos under the "TV Shows" section of the entertainment were finals from a DotA2 and Hearthstone tournament.

I think even ESPN are showing LoL, DotA and Hearthstone on TV and we also have Twitch which is basically the place to go for live feeds of tournaments so it's safe to say that the e-sports scene has come a fair way.

Then I hear that there's been talk of putting e-sports in the Olympics which is an interesting topic for discussion.  I can totally see why some would see e-sports having a rightful place in the Olympics but I can also understand why some people wouldn't want them there either.  But that's not what I'm here to talk about with this post.

This is Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee.  If you take a quick look at his Wikipedia page you can clearly see he's a well educated man and some kind of ex-fencing beast that took home a gold medal in 1976.  But just because he's got some decent academics and can wield a foil like a pro doesn't make him immune from saying some of the stupidest shit I've ever heard in my life.  Here's a quote

“We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people, This doesn’t match with video games, which are about violence, explosions and killing. And there we have to draw a clear line.”
[Source: https://www.sporttechie.com/no-violent-video-games-in-the-olympics-says-ioc-president/ ]

What in the name of fuck is wrong with this guy.  Video games are about violence, explosions and killing?  This is the kind of stupid statement I expect to hear from my elderly relatives that barely know what a computer even is, not the head of the IOC.  There are good arguments for and against putting e-sports in the Olympics like I said before but games being "violent" isn't one of them.

The olympic is host to a number of combat sports which could be seen as violent.  I mean this guy making this statement used to be a fucking Fencer.  I could easily make some kind of ignorant bullshit comment like him and say something like "We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people, this doesn't match with fencing which is just stabbing and slashing at folks with bits of metal"

It sounds to me like Mr Bach is just an old, ignorant man who has a tired old view of gaming and doesn't want to do ANY research on the topic and expand his knowledge on the topic.  Go and watch any kind of analytical video on a game like Starcraft, Street Fighter or Counter Strike and you can easily see that there's so much more going on that just "violence, killing and explosions". 

There's no place in 2017 for stupid, ignorant and misguided comments like that.  Should video games be in the event? I don't know, but should they be disregarded entirely because of "violence"?  Hell no and that idea is so fantastically fucking stupid that my head might just explode violently and kill me in reaction to reading something that dumb. 

YouTube Content Extravaganza

You may have noticed that nothing new has been added to the YouTube channel in quite a long time, well that's all about to change! Here are 5 new videos! Yes! 5! Count 'em!

First of all lets start with some cultural stuff.  A couple of days ago I went to the Nagoya Festival where there was lots of stalls and food on sticks.  Most importantly though, there was a huge parade through town, which I took a couple of videos of.  Due to having a shit battery in my camera I couldn't take the whole thing, but I got a few highlights.  You can also follow me on twitter if you want pictures of it @Taurinensis.

But wait, I hear you exclaim!  What the fuck does the Nagoya Festival have to do with Silent Bomber for Playstation 1?  Well fucking nothing, obviously, but the reason that picture is there is because SURPRISE! NEW UNPLANNED PLAYTHROUGH!  Me and my good buddy take up our futuristic bombing rigs and go crazy in sci-fi action game Silent Bomber! Enjoy!

There you go, 5 new videos, if that doesn't make you happy nothing will.