Your Race, Gender or Sexuality Doesn't Fucking Matter!!!!

Well fuckin' shit, I called it didn't I?  E3 2014 isn't even fucking over yet and I'm already hearing news of "outcry" from twats with too much time on their hands who don't know what they are talking about and hate fun.

Before I continue, let me put a big fat disclaimer on this post.  I am NOT Anti-Gay, Anti-Women or a racist and the fact that I have to spell this out for a number of people is fucking sad.  I'm not going to judge a person based on the colour of their skin, their genitals or what they decide to do with said genitals.  If I call you a fuckin' asshole, it's because you are being a goddamn fucking asshole and something as base as your sexuality, race or gender doesn't even fucking factor in.

Now that I've got that out of the way, let me address the first bit of outcry I got tipped off about and that was regarding the dude in the picture at the top of the post.  He is the villain from Farcry 4 and he's a flamboyant warlord type that goes around in a pink suit and has a foppish haircut.  The outcry comes from the fact that he MIGHT (Yes, MIGHT is the key fucking word because no one actually knows) be gay.

Well so fucking what? Villains can't be wealthy warlords? What kind of fucked up discrimination is that?  Well seriously the argument is that because he's the bad guy it's perpetuating and image of gays being "the bad guys" of society and teaches people that we should kill them off or some shit.  We all know that's bullshit and the only reason they are piping up about it is for attention and so that they have another wonky soapbox to stand on regarding the agenda.  But it's not just bullshit, it's fucking hypocritical!

[INCOMING SPOILERS]

This is Ellie from The Last of Us, as if you didn't fucking already know that since this game gets plastered everywhere.  In the DLC it was revealed that she was into chicks which is fine.  People were happy with this character being homosexual because she's the good guy and obviously they felt that the way Ellie was portrayed in The Last of Us painted homosexuals in a good light.

So let me get this straight....You're OK with good guys being homosexuals but when it's a bad guy it's a big no no?  Fuck off with your double standard!  You can't have it one when and then complain when it's another.

If you're going to complain about that kind of thing then as a British person I have way more fucking right to complain than you guys do.  Almost every villain in every action movie ever is some stuck up British dude, but you don't see us complaining do you?  Assholes

So now that I've complained about that, let's move on to outcry number 2 which is the whole thing about female characters in the new Assassins Creed.

I've talked about this issue before, maybe not on the blog but I discussed it with a few people with the game Deep Down which had a similar issue.  From a plot perspective and a development one, there was a reason for not including female playable characters in that game and it seems to be a similar issue here.  I don't care if you think the idea of including female models in the game to be used as player characters is too much work is bollocks, that's their story and they are sticking to it.

But at the end of the day, so fucking what?  Assassins Creed is a game about sneaking around and stabbing people in the face, who gives a flying rats arse if the protagonist or any other character in that game has a pair of tits or not?  As long as the sneaking is good and the stabbing is fun then who gives a shit about what gender the characters are.

Imagine if I took Doom and changed the little face at the bottom of the screen from a man to a woman.  Would it affect ANYTHING in that game? Of course it fucking wouldn't, it would still be fucking Doom and it would still be an amazing game.  So if we take Arno, the protagonist from AC: Unity and call him Arlina and give him a pair of tits, NOTHING FUCKING CHANGES.  You are STILL jumping on buildings being a sneaky bugger and you are STILL stabbing people in the face so WHO FUCKING CARES YOU WHINY PIECE OF SHIT.

There are rare examples of games that have included a characters sexuality or gender to actually mean something to the story.  Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good example of this.

This is Volgin, the bad guy and he just happens to be a fucking psychopath who gets off on sexually torturing people.  However, he also happens to be bisexual but in THIS case, that fact is an important part of his character.  He's not just some chauvinist torturing women for kicks, he's a fucking nutter torturing EVERYONE for kicks and it doesn't matter if he's taking his electro powers to men, women or even fucking dogs, he gets off on it all and THIS makes him just that little bit more intimidating as a villain.  It doesn't paint bisexuals badly it paints HIM, Volgin, the character, as a total nutter and that's what they were going for.

Unfortunately this kind of thing is pretty rare.  Even characters that people cite as "Strong female leads" are completely interchangeable.   Faith, from Mirrors Edge for example is nothing more than a camera on legs that runs on buildings.  It could be Fred for all we care and it would still be a fun game, nothing would change.

95% of the time, the race, gender or sexuality of a character in a game doesn't fucking matter.  Developers don't hate gays, women and they sure as hell aren't racist so they aren't out JUST to offend you.  They are serving a market, which is mainly made up of straight males and that's why games are made the way they are.  If you don't like it you have 2 choices, fuck off and stop moaning OR make your own game to suit what you want to see.  We live in an age where crowd funding is super popular so getting capitol for a project like that isn't an unreasonable idea.

Finally I know, I fucking KNOW that not everyone who happens to be gay or female or whatever who plays games are like this, I'm very much aware that it's a vocal minority of idiots and it's sad because I can promise you there are a lot of people not quite as level headed as me who has it out for all of you because the caustic complaints of the few are giving the rational many a bad name.

What's even worse is that things like women's issues and gay rights are an actual thing that needs support in certain places.  There are countries where it's still illegal to be gay and women still get circumcisions which is fucking disgusting and THAT'S the kind of thing that needs to stop.

So stop moaning about fucking video games and go do something worth while.  There's enough of you to maybe make a difference if you put your mind to it, stop being so fucking petty.

R.I.P Rick Mayall

Very recently, British comedian Rick Mayall died at the age of 56 and it's bloody sad.

Rick Mayall was probably most recognised for his work on a British comedy TV show called The Young Ones that was originally aired back in 1982.  Due to the shows popularity it continued to be aired after production had stopped in 1984 and as a result I have many a fond memory of watching the show with my family.  It's a great show and I suggest anyone that hasn't seen it to go look it up and I promise you that you will not be disappointed

So the real question here is, why am I writing about a dead British comedian on a gaming blog?  Well if you owned a PS1 around the year 2000 then you may have played this little gem.

The game was basically Worms but with Pigs and it was fun as hell.  The game featured a bunch of funny voice clips from Rick Mayall and after watching The Young Ones that alone was enough to get me to buy the game when it came out (and by that I mean beg my parents for it)

So, let's lighten the mood of this sad event by looking back and enjoying some of the stuff he did once again.  If you don't like watching British comedy for some reason, then at least you can still get your Rick fix through Hogs of War.

If you don't like either of those things then fuck off to Google and find something that he did that might interest you because he was a fucking funny man.

Finding it hard to care about E3 2014

What the fuck happened here?  I remember a few years ago I used to get super excited for E3.  I remember during my second year of uni, my buddy coming to my place and we spent a couple days just gaming, drinking and watching the conferences and it was great.  But now I hear people talking about E3 stuff and I end up scrolling past in with zero fucks given.

It's not that E3 is not worth paying attention to, but I think all the next-gen bullshit has really soured me to the industry a bit and I can't really envision anything happening that's going to get me excited.  Last year with the run up to next-gen and all the news about the new systems all we got was stuff on social networking, sports and TV.  Sony tried to bring some light by talking about how it's not going to fuck over consumers with used games and whatnot but generally speaking E3 2013 and everything since then has been a load of shit. 

Next-gen is still mostly bollocks that isn't worth investing in right now and the constant money grubbing from various publishers and developers seems to be getting worse rather than better.  On top of that, games journalism is at an all time low with it being filled of mainly inept twats who are more interested in either having their pockets lined by publisher funds or pushing social agendas so I expect most of the coverage for the show to be a load of shit too.

Now before anyone flies off the handle and gets all upset, I'm not saying this is how it is, I'm only giving my opinion on what I think it's GOING to be like.  It's hard to care right now but I will absolutely watch all the major conferences and follow the announcements and news as it comes out but I'm just not expecting it to blow my mind.

This is a shame because the whole purpose of E3 was to blow our minds and get us excited for whats to come but instead all I can think of is "what's going to fuck us over next?"

I want to be wrong on this, I really REALLY do.  I want E3 2014 to swoop in, smack me in the face and deliver some awesomeness that's going to have me jumping up and down and screaming at my wife about all the cool new shit I'm going to waste my salary on in the next few months. 

I just don't see it happening though

Tau Does A Really Shitty Gone Home Playthrough

The Audio is terrible
The game is terrible
The story is terrible
Everything is terrible

Stream Week Is A Bust

Well fuckin' shit, talk about things going completely tits up.

A while back I announced a stream week, but you may have noticed that I've not been streaming the last few days.  This isn't because I just can't be arsed, I just have a lot going on.

When I announced stream week, it was because I was under the impression that I was going to have a lull in my busy schedule and streaming would be a piece of piss.  Turns out between my job, my family and getting sick on Monday, things only got more hectic rather than less.

This doesn't mean Stream Week won't happen, it's just been delayed.  I'll re-announce a proper stream week with some extra bonus stuff in the near future, once I'm absolutely sure that I'll be able to pull it off.

Getting Excited For Murdered: Soul Suspect

It's not very often that I get excited for upcoming games much any more and I haven't seen all that much of the game I'm about to be talking about but never the less I'm still very excited for it.

For anyone who is less in the know than I am, Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game coming out very soon developed by Square Enix Japan and Airtight Games (apparently, at time of writing, it has already been released in North America).  From what I know about the game it's about a cop who is killed at the start and it is up to him as a ghost to solve his own murder so that he may move on to the after life.

While that is a really interesting premise the main reason I'm so excited for this game is because it reminds me ever so slightly of something else....

That's right! Goddamn, motherfuckin' Ghost Trick on DS! This is easily one of the best games on the DS and it basically shares the same plot as Murdered: Soul Suspect so if they are even just a little bit similar, Soul Suspect is gearing up to be a bloody good game.

Ghost Trick was very much a puzzle game where Soul Suspect appears to be more of an adventure so it'll be interesting to see how square takes basically the same premise and runs it in a different direction. 

So for anyone waiting for Soul Suspect to come out or for anyone who doesn't have the money to throw down on a brand new release, go find and play Ghost Trick.  It's a wonderful little puzzle game with a great plot and some of the best graphics I've seen on the DS, everyone should try this game.

Then we can all hop on Soul Suspect together and hopefully have another great, ghostly murder mystery game to have fun with!

Mario Kart 8 is Pretty Good

I don't own a WiiU but thanks to my friend very kindly bringing his over this weekend I managed to have a good toot on Mario Kart 8 and it's an absolute ton of fun.

If you have ever played a Mario Kart game before which I'm going to assume you have at this point, it's basically more of the same.  They have added some kind of anti gravity thing which means that a lot of the games original courses are pretty crazy and fun to play.  There are a good selection of new items too but the game seems to be a lot stingier with it's toys this time round so I've not had too much of a chance to play around with them.

The multiplayer is also a ton of fun and supports both split screen and online play.  If you have only two players then you have the option of jumping into the online mode and playing against the denizens of the internet together.  The online mode is also very fast and very simple, if you just wanted a quick race or two then it's extremely easy to just jump on and have a few races with some randoms and it has features to allow you to play with your friends but I've not been able to test the functionality of that.

The simplicity of the game is what makes it so damn good though.  You buy most modern games and it has to do DLC checks and then pesters you to buy a map or a character or some such total bullshit.  Mario Kart just lets me pop in the game and fucking play it, which is great and more games need to adopt this approach rather than trying to spend all their time on every menu screen trying to squeeze more money out of me.

Also a lot of people rag on the WiiU for not being as graphically advanced as the PS4 and the Xbox One but Mario Kart 8 is an extremely pretty game.  The courses look great and are quite varied and it runs silky smooth even during split screen multiplayer.

I'm going to have the chance to play the game a bit more over the coming week, so if I find any bullshit I'll be sure to rant about it somewhere but for now, Mario Kart 8 might just be the game that convinces me to go pick up my own WiiU