Tau's Top 5 Games of 2013!

Since it's new years eve, it's time for a top 5 countdown!

So, the requirement for being added to this list is that the game came out in 2013 AND I played it to completion.  For that reason, I'm warning you right now, The Last of Us, GTA5 and Bioshock Infinite are not on this list.  I played TLoU and Bioshock except I didn't beat TLoU and Bioshock was a piece of crap....and I didn't beat that either.  GTA5 came out just as I was leaving Sweden for Japan, so I've not had a chance to play it yet, I'm sure it's very good, Rockstar know what they are doing.

ANYWAY! HERE WE GO!

Game #5: Super Monster Ate My Condo

Whoa now? for serious? A mobile game in a top 5?! If you don't like that then I suggest you actually go and give the game a go before slagging it off, it's actually really good.

Super Monster Ate My Condo is a match 3 puzzle game where you have to match condos to make more condos in order to make even more condos to make more and more points.  It's simple yet there is some depth to be found in the form of boosts and managing the bonuses that can be triggered via the monsters on the edge of the screen.  It also has a coin system that is in place for Adult Swim to make money off this free to play title, but you get so many coins per normal game that I never once had to use it and the boosts cost so little you'll never have to "grind" coins to get high scores.

Also the world leader board gives me a reason to keep going back and try and crawl my way up bit by bit.  It's a really fun game and it costs absolutely nothing, so you have no excuse not to at least TRY this little mobile gem.  I've not really been this addicted to a puzzler since Tetris.

Game #4: Rouge Legacy

I like rougelikes and while this is what a lot of the rougelike hardcore would call an "entry level" rougelike, it doesn't stop it from being fun as all hell.  Pick a knight, collect gold, kill enemies, die, start over with a new knight, rinse and repeat until you beat all the bosses.  Then once you've done that, do it again....but HARDER, and then again....BUT HARDER STILL.

The game has an expansive tree of upgrades for your knights and an equipment/rune system that will change the way you play, but the coolest aspect of this game can be found on the character select screen.  Each knight is given a trait (Read: Disability) which can range from something silly like the whole game playing black and white to something super obnoxious like the whole game being turned upside down.  Also the fact that you are never allowed to choose the class of your heir and are just given 3 at random every time means that you kind of have to adjust your play style every round, which keeps things fun and interesting.

It's also great to look at with really nice visuals and it's sound design is pretty good too.  Available on Steam for a pretty affordable price, it's worth every penny you end up dropping for this great little game.

Game #3: Don't Starve

I've heard some people compare Don't Starve to Minecraft, but it's nothing like Minecraft so those people need a bit of a slap.

Don't starve is KIND of a rougelike but not really.  It's a rougelike in the sense that the world is random every time and it has perma death, but it's more of a survival game than a "get to the end of the dungeon in one go" game.

You fire up the game, pick a character and then are dropped into a big horrible world full of god knows what trying to kill you.  On top of having to survive that, you have to make sure that you collect resources and food to keep yourself alive and allow you to explore further and further through your randomly generated island of madness.  There's lots to do, lots to see and plenty of mystery when you're new and it can really draw you in and keep you playing for hours and hours.

I've not played any of Don't Starve for a good while now due to trying to work my way feverishly through my backlog, but last time I played it was being updated quite frequently, so with a stream of new content coming from the developer and an active modding community Don't Starve has the potential to give you months and months, if not years of entertainment.

Game #2: Code of Joker

Sorry folks, but my second favourite game of this year is a Japan only arcade game, so if you want to play this one you might want to book a plane ticket.

Code of Joker is a little bit hard to describe but the way I put it forward to my friends is "imagine if you took Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering and the Pokemon trading card game and smashed them all together" and that about sums the whole thing up.

While it's a little expensive at 300 Yen per play, matches do tend to last a while and you are given more and more cards every time.  Also you don't need to carry a deck around with you since it is kept on a nice little stat card that you register when you put in your first credit.

There's a large number of cards so there is plenty of room to tailor a strategy that suits you and on top of that you get to pick one character out of a pool of about....7...I think...each with their own unique power that may change the tide of a duel if it's not going so well for you.

Couple that with every single Code of Joker machine being hooked up to an internet connection so that you can play anyone in Japan from any game centre in the country and it makes for a fun time.  It's a shame this kind of coin-op innovation isn't more readily available in western countries.

GAME NUMBER 1! Metal Gear Rising AND Killer Is Dead

The memory of playing these 2 games are the ones that have stuck with me and these are the two games I remember having the most fun with this year (except Deadly Premonition but that wasn't 2013) however I can't decide which one I liked more, so they both win.  If you don't like 2 games winning a joint first then shut up and make your own damn list.

Let's start with MGR, a fast paced character action game with an absolutely batshit crazy plot and solid hacky slashy game play with a few gimmicks that made it feel kind of fresh.  Sure, it was kind of short but if it was any longer than those gimmicks I just mentioned would start to feel very tired; it was JUST the right length but the general shortness of the game didn't stop me from getting hours and hours of playtime out of it.  There are higher difficulty settings, a challenge room and if you're like me you'll replay the shit out of it for mission rankings so being able to blast through the game in a pretty short period of time is actually pretty good for a game like this, it has the content to back it up.

Then there is Killer is Dead, a game in the same genre developed by the industries resident nutjob Suda51.  The game follows a suave as all hell main character as he goes around assassinating people and uncovering his dark past.  While the game play didn't FEEL quite as deep as MGR, it was just as satisfying.  Overblown visual effects, satisfying sound design as crazy as fuck levels and bosses made for a truly memorable game.  It kind of felt like a strange hybrid between Killer7 and No More Heroes in a way and how can you go wrong with a mix like that?

HONOURABLE MENTION: Papers, Please

I wanted to put this game somewhere on the actual list but since the game play really doesn't amount to much more than spot the difference then I couldn't really bring myself to do it.  That said, Papers, Please is easily one of the best indie games I've ever played and it's a title I would thoroughly recommend to absolutely anyone.

On the surface, Papers, Please sounds like one of the most boring games that could possibly have ever been made.  You play as a border control inspector for the country of Arstotzka and it is up to you to check the documents of the various immigrants trying to enter your country.  For each in game day you are given a set of rules and you must follow these rules to the letter or lose whatever little money that you have left to support your family.

While you are checking documents you find yourself caught up in a number of different little story lines, some big and some small and all of them are quite interesting.  From your little booth you not only manage to get caught up in some political espionage (if you choose to do so) but you also play a key role in a lot of peoples lives since it is ultimately up to you if their stories can continue or not.  At some points in the game the decision between entry or denial is the same thing as life or death but the games overall setup makes it very hard to want to do the right thing.  For such a simple idea with such boring sounding game play, it manages to be rather powerful.

Also I really enjoyed checking documents and coming down on arsebags trying to cheat their way into my country.  GLORY TO ARSTOTZKA!

Anyway that's the end of the list, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe discovered a new game or two that's worth playing.  If you're that upset about the big 3 AAA games of the year not being on there well don't worry, I'll be posting up my thoughts on them when I get round to beating/playing them.

Happy new year everybody! Let's hope 2014 brings us even more great games.

Off to Kyoto and Osaka

The above picture is Kinkakuji in Kyoto if anyone is interested.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for a bit of a trip to Osaka and Kyoto with some buddies so for that reason there won't be any updates until I return and sleep off all the fatigue I'm probably going to build up on this busy little adventure.

If you're interested in seeing some of the stuff I'm seeing, follow me on Twitter (@Taurinensis) and I'll be uploading pictures and information about all the stuff I'm going to go and gawp at.

Once I return you can expect the last episode of Silent Bomber AND I'll be announcing my top 5 games of 2013, so you can look forward to that.  Also, now that all the hustle and bustle of the Christmas period is over I hope to start streaming more speed runs and Final Fantasy again, so get your donation money ready for some fun time streams!

Tau and Friends suck at games

We had a hard time with this final boss, the successful attempt is coming soon

'Tis the season to meet charity goals!

Merry Christmas one and all!

What an appropriate time for this to happen!  The first £1000 goal for identity gaming has been met!  Granted the final donation was made from my Daikatana fail donation except if someone hadn't donated for that marathon in the first place, we'd still be down £25 right now, so for the first time me sucking at something has actually worked out better.

I just want to take a moment to thank EVERYBODY who has donated so far.  If you were just enjoying the content or donated during a marathon, every penny counts and it means a great deal to me so once again thank you so much for all the donations and support for the blog.

So what happens now? Now that £1000 has been raised we just stop there? WRONG!  All it means is that the value has been doubled!  That's right, this time round we're shooting for £2000, so that means more content, more marathons, more streaming and hopefully more donations!

The link for the new donation page can be found here
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/identitygaming2

So please direct all your future donations to that page!

Now I have to go cook all day and celebrate Christmas and stuff so once again, thank you everyone for all the support and I hope you keep on supporting me.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Announcing the first Identity Gaming Giveaway!

Right, sorry for two Tomba marathon updates in a row, but I think you'll like this one.

So as we all know by now I think, I put out content in the hopes that you'll be entertained to the point of giving to charity, this is true for the blog, the YouTube and pretty much everything I do under the name of Identity Gaming.

Usually I try and drum up extra donations or by providing donation incentives for things relating to the various bits of content, you can see these donations on the right hand side of the page, however today I'm announcing the first Identity Gaming Giveaway!!!

Yep, during the Tomba stream this Tuesday (times will be announced on Monday via Twitter) ANY donations made will enter you in for chance to win copies of either Dungeon Siege 3 or Tomb Raider!!

The donation can be of any value but higher value donations have a higher chance of winning!  Also any donation you make can also go to any of the incentives on the right hand side of the blog, so make sure you give them a quick read before you donate!

You can donate here
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/identitygaming

and the stream will be here
www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

The Tomba Marathon Coming Soon!

Right, this is the post that is setting the official date for the Tomba: Until I win Marathon.

Before I said it was going to take place on Monday the 23rd, but that's been changed to Tuesday the 24th due to the Monday being a national holiday in Japan.

Before then I'll be streaming Hotline Miami speed runs and after that I'll sink my teeth into the rest of the Final Fantasy 5 play through! Also keep an eye out on the donation incentive lists because I'm hoping to add some more goals really soon.

Finally from Wednesday I'll be starting my new speed run project, Ys for the PC! So don't forget to tune into that and watch me fail to route it properly.

www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

Why PAX's "Roll for Diversity" is a load of shit

Now hold on there for a second, don't crucify me just yet, this isn't the kind of rant that you think it's going to be.

So a couple of days ago I was made aware of this "Roll for Diversity Hub and Lounge" at PAX.  The idea behind this thing is that members of various communities will be able to go to this booth and make people aware of various issues in the game industry and stuff like that.  Developers can go down to this thing and talk with these people, listen to their concerns and all that kind of good stuff, it sounds great right?  Well sure, it sounds great on the surface, but just hold the phone a second.

The idea for this PAX booth was I'm sure, created with all best intentions in mind but really it's a load of shit, just think about it for a second.  Women, members of the LGBT community, people of colour and all the other groups that were put on that list, they weren't banned from PAX before and I'm sure no one said anything when they inevitably showed up at PAX, right?  Well now they've been cordoned off into a little corner of the convention and are probably going to end up mostly ignored, not because people don't like them, but because people who attend PAX want to hear about VIDEO GAMES! not social issues.

There is no need for this booth to exist in this form.  If these people have problems, then the developers do panels and stuff, it can be brought up there, among everyone else and not segregated to it's own trivial little corner of the convention.  But that's the big problem with it really, it's trivialising the whole thing.

I can't be bothered to go find the video, but there is a clip of Morgan Freeman talking about Black History Month.  He says in this video, that he doesn't want a Black History Month, because he doesn't want his history to be boiled down to one month of the year, and it's essentially the same thing here.  These groups have been reduced to a single booth at PAX just so that they (they being PAX by the way) can seem more progressive, and it's a bit sickening in a way.

You want to hear about a REAL progressive and friendly community of people?  The speed running community, that's who!  With my experience dealing with speed runs and speed running, they don't give a flying fuck if you're a man or woman, black or white, gay or straight, able bodied or not or whatever, if you just enjoy playing games really fuckin' fast, then you are MORE than welcome to join the community and they'll help you in whatever endeavour you take on.

THAT is how you deal with this issue, you be inclusive not by waving around a booth sign going "LOOK AT HOW PROGRESSIVE WE ARE" but by just being that way in the first place.  The issues that do exist within the industry DO need to be talked about but almost 100% of people doing it right now are doing it wrong.   Sexy women in games aren't oppressing you and a lack of gay characters aren't going to ruin your life, they don't matter.  What you want to be talking about is equality in the work place, availability of education to different groups of people, that kind of thing.

That's why people get upset when things like Dragons Crown come up, because those issues don't fucking matter.  Let us enjoy the Amazon's huge ass, go and fight a battle that ACTUALLY matters and will actually better the industry in some way.

So to sum up the whole thing; Fuck you PAX, your booth is garbage

More Xbox One Disappointment

Remember a while back I said next gen didn't work properly and it was a big disappointment?  Well yeah, time for more of that!

Although this time it's not really about things that work, we're going to be talking DRM again.  So today I came across an article (which I will link at the bottom) which describes an occurrence that happened during a Killer Instinct tournament.  Basically, during the matches, the Xbox One check in DRM kicked in and just ended the match then and there to make sure that they owned the game that they were playing.  It didn't warn anyone that this was going to take place, it just booted them right out of the game with no regard for what they were doing.

I thought that Microsoft had done away with the check in DRM thing, but it turns out I was wrong.  The way I now understand it is, if you have a disc and it is inserted into the Xbox, then this doesn't happen.  However if you are playing a game that does not have a disc (So anything off the marketplace then), then the Xbox will just boot you out of the game so you can do the little check-in procedure.

If you go click the link at the bottom of this thing and check out the YouTube video in the article, it LOOKS like they were between matches or something, I'm not sure I've not played the new KI, so it looks more inconvenient than anything else, but this might seriously have an impact on Killer Instinct making an appearance at something like EVO, because I'm sure both tournament organisers and players won't be happy if the Xbox decides that it wants to do it's little DRM check during a battle.  I'm sure someone would be pissed if they were winning a match that's stopped due to DRM, then they lose their mojo and get trounced in the re-match; that shit ain't fair.

But even if your not into fighting games or the competitive gaming scene, it's STILL a problem.  Imagine if a little way down the line something like an RPG comes out on the marketplace.  Imagine if this RPG doesn't have checkpoints or something bullshit like that, it just has good old fashioned save spots.  Then imagine if you're doing a dungeon, a long dungeon, maybe the final one, you're near the end and you're having a hard time making it through but just before you can go fight the final boss BAM! DRM check kicks in an you lose all that progress for fucking nothing.  I wouldn't be too happy about that if it was me.

This is even going to have an impact on people who enjoy speed running because during a good run you don't want to have all that effort killed because of something you can't control.  If there are multi platform digital distribution games that look good for a speed runner, they will more than likely go buy it on a system that doesn't threaten to kick you out if you don't confirm you own it every 24 hours or whatever it is.

So yeah, more next generation disappointment.  Microsoft need to sort their shit out, I thought this DRM check in stuff was done with, but now it's here just ruining fighting game tournaments and being a bit of a bastard.

Here's the link to the original article I heard this on.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xbox-One-24-Hour-Check-DRM-Returns-During-Killer-Instinct-Tournament-61114.html

I'm not dead! Just a bit sick! Silent Bomber 14 and other updates

If you're wondering why there hasn't been any content for the past few days, it's because it was my birthday....and then I got a bit sick.  But I've recovered now so I'm back in the driving seat and ready to chat shit about video games once again.

First things first, let me provide you with new video content to enjoy!

Then I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the charity! 

At the time of writing this post there is £956 sitting in the tracker, we're only a little tiny bit away from making the £1000 goal.  Once my Christmas holiday kicks in at the end of the week, I'll see if I can do anything about getting a few more incentives up to maybe get the goal met before the end of the new year, so keep an eye out on that side bar.

Then the stream.  On Monday the 23rd there will be the Tomba marathon, so hopefully we can get some donations during that.  Also starting from tomorrow I'll be starting my new Speed Run project of Ys for the PC, so if you enjoy those games that'll be worth watching.  Starting with casual runs as I have no idea about a decent route for a speed run just yet, but all in good time.

As far as YouTube is concerned, the Silent Bomber play through will be finishing soon and I'm hoping to record some new ones really soon.  Also I have an idea for a show on coin-op gaming in the works but the people I plan to record it with are currently busy doing Christmas stuff, so that might not get done till mid January at the earliest.

Finally it's business as usual for the blog, just me writing about crap and getting angry at stupid bullshit every so often.

So yeah, now that I'm a year older and not sick anymore, we can return to a decent flow of content again!  Thank's for your patience.

The Dina Disaster

This person seriously needs to get the fuck out, big time.

So first of all, let me re-talk about Mighty Number 9.  Mighty Number 9 is a kickstarter project that was set up by Keiji Inafune.  If you don't know who he is, he's basically one of the main guys behind the Megaman games.  Anyway, after Megaman was treated like absolute shit by Capcom, Inafune comes along with this kickstarter and everyone (including myself) goes mad hype because FINALLY we're getting a game that is Megaman in everything but name.

People donate something like $3.8 million to this project, the folks really want a new Megaman game that doesn't suck complete arse and they want it bad.  You could go on the Kickstarter page and view all the stretch goals and judging from that, the game was shaping up to be something really good, at least on paper.

But then fucking Dina shows up.

Dina is one of those stupid arsehole feminists that I sometimes rant about ruining games.  She is one of those people in their purest form.  She starts out by making a post about how Beck, the main character, should be completely changed into a female character because of "gender representation" in games or some fucking stupid bullshit like that.  But fine, even if they did take that seriously at least that wouldn't affect game play.

But it gets worse.  Due to the fact that her fucking boyfriend is working on the project, she gets taken on board as a community manager.  Sounds fine right? She just has to deal with the community forums and stuff like that, listen to peoples questions and concerns and whatnot, right?  Well she doesn't fucking do that.  A load of issues spring up, she just ignores people, edits or replies to forum posts with stupid snarky quips and locks down her twitter and deletes a load of stuff while nobody can see.

So, she sucks as a community manager, but that's all shes doing right?  Wrong, she's also designing the robots for the game.  Why is THIS bad you might ask?  Well look at the above picture, her artwork fucking sucks a fat one.  I don't want shit looking like THAT in what is supposed to be a spiritual successor to Megaman, it's a fucking joke.

So already it's really bad.  We have a lying, condescending social justice moron trying to push her stupid shitty agenda and on top of that she has a platform to really push her shit because shes doing the fucking artwork, but believe it or not, that's not the worst of it.

This woman has barely fucking played Megaman before and has what seems to be very little interest in it.  The whole thing that made this project sound as cool as it did, was because it was being worked on by people who knew what made Megaman good and they were passionate about delivering a quality product.  Now we have this shit head on the team who doesn't give a flying fuck about Megaman or it's spiritual successor, doing that artwork and working with the company on the project.

When people donated that money, they were donating for a "Megaman" game, created by people who were passionate about Megaman.  $3.8 million later and that's starting to crumble, so obviously I'm not the only one who's pissed off, there are plenty of people WAYYYY more upset than I am, because their out of pocket on this shit.

Unless Dina is removed from the project, Mighty Number 9 is dead to me.  It's probably not going to be the next Megaman game I was hoping for, it's going to be a super politically correct platformer where the fucking ROBOTS are changed into women for absolutely no reason other than the fact that the artist things there aren't enough chicks in games.

Get fucked Dina, I've only known that you exist for about 24 hours and you're already topping my hate list.  Burn your shitty artwork and donate whatever Comcept are paying to the Alzheimer's Society you sorry excuse for a human being.

The YouTube Let's Play Crackdown

Do you remember a long long time ago, back when this thing was still in its infancy and the donation count was barely above £50 that I started making game play videos?  If you don't, it was 3 Dirty Dwarves on the Saturn and you are only a few clicks from being able to watch it from the links in the sidebar.

Now I'm obviously not the only person who does this, there are literally thousands of people doing game play commentary videos and while I'm in it to try and entertain you (probably failing) and convince you to donate a little bit to a charity, there are a lot of people who do it for self profit.

Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to be paid for these kind of videos but when all your really doing is just sitting on your ass and playing a game, it's kind of difficult to understand why someone would EXPECT to be paid for that, but that's just me.

Anyway, this "crackdown" I'm talking about is basically YouTube being a lot stricter with it's copyright stuff.  If you have a video that contains copyrighted material, then they flag it.  If you acknowledge the third party content it puts ads on your video and the money goes to that third party, and if you dispute it and win, the ad revenue goes to you.

This tightening up of what can and cannot be monetised is a problem for some people because for a very lucky few, this is how they make a living, although with these changes there is a chance that they won't be able to sustain that anymore.  I don't really see the problem because simply playing a game and talking over it is not the kind of thing that deserves payment really.  I would sit in a room with people and talk to them while I played games all the time at university but no one was showering me in money.

It's not like YouTube is taking the content down, we aren't see a death of the "Let's Play" here, but what we are having to deal with is a reality where people can't milk game play videos for a quick buck.  Still though, it's not all bad because maybe these people can you know....get a job or something...I dunno, maybe I'm just crazy.

This doesn't really affect me in the slightest because I don't monetise my videos and I'm not all that popular.  So if Sega want to put ads on my Panzer Dragoon videos or whatever to earn a few pennies, then fine with me, go for it.  I have a pretty decent job, I'm not going to cry over losing a few YouTube bucks. 

Basically what I'm trying to say is that it's not THAT big of a deal.  If your idea of having a stable income was by producing game play videos with commentary then I think maybe you need to have a long hard think about yourself.

New Silent Bomber Episode....and Tomba stream marathon dates!

First things first, a new episode of the Silent Bomber playthrough has been uploaded for you to enjoy!

Also the marathon for December has been decided!  I'm going to be doing another "Until I win" stream but this time for Tomba!

The dates for this marathon aren't set in stone just yet, but for now let's say it's going to go down on Monday the 23rd.  If it changes I'll do another post nearer the time about the new dates, so get hype for that and stuff.

Who Cares About VGX?

Here we go again folks!  It's getting to the end of the year, so it's now time once again for everyone to start putting their game of the year lists together!

If anyone doesn't know what VGX is it's some video game award thing hosted by Spike TV and it involves talking about games for a bit, and then announcing a load of awards given to whoever made the best of whatever category they are pushing.  The show is produced by Geoff Keighley, the man known to the masses as "Dorito Pope", so you know it's probably a load of bollocks.

Now when I woke up this morning it was already underway but having a quick look at my twitter turned me right off the whole thing.  The first thing I saw was that Nintendo announced a new Donkey Kong game, which I thought was cool but apparently the rest of the internet was just complaining about it.  The day has come when people are cursing a new DKC game....and that's a sad day.

So aside from the Dorito Pope the whole thing was hosted by Joel Mchale, who I'm not familiar with but he's not much of a game fan by the looks of things.  From what I saw and heard about the goings on, he spent most of his time looking like he didn't want to be there but he did manage to ask a couple of really awkward questions to certain people, which gave me a little chuckle.

Now I have a bit of a problem with these kinds of award shows because the winners are always really really predictable.  The game of the year winner at VGX was, surprise surprise, Grand Theft Auto 5.  Not that I'm saying that there's anything wrong with GTA5, I've not played it yet, it's probably a good game at the very least however the game of the year really can only go to like 1 of maybe 3 games off the top of my head.  Most of the big review sites will probably give their game of the year award to either The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite or Grand Theft Auto 5. 

In fact, I'll make a bet with people right now, for every major gaming site that gives it's GOTY to something different, I'll give £5 to charity, so make sure you email me and make me aware because I'm not going to go hunting for it.

Not that those 3 are bad games, they are all passable titles, well put together with lots of polish and all that jazz but the fact that every gaming site will give their awards to one of these three is a little boring and sort of smells a bit of that whole "paid review" thing that gets talked about sometimes.  I just wish that they would be more open about what their game of the year could be, so that when I watch I don't just fast forward through nominees because I know exactly what they are going to pick.

I heard though that fucking Gone Home of all goddamn things won indie game of the year.  THIS I don't fucking agree with, because it's barely even qualifies as a game.  If you want to tell me that Gone Home was better that Rouge Legacy, Don't Starve, Gunpoint, Antichamber and many others (that's just going off my sidebar) then take your shitty opinion and fuck off out of my face, I reject your awful taste in video games.  I'm not sure if it actually did though, so if I'm wrong I'll be happy to discover that.

I didn't ignore the VGX completely but what I did see seemed low budget, badly made bullshit.  The reveal about DKC was cool and I didn't see the others but the awards were so predictable I ended up closing the tab and playing fucking Gynoug on the Mega Drive.  Do people actually give a flying fuck about these award shows? They know which handful of games is probably going to win so why bother?

Although if the VGX did one thing right it bored me enough to make me get up from my computer and work through my PS3 backlog for a few hours.

GAME's Christmas Tinner

Are you fucking serious?  Please tell me this isn't serious.....

The above picture may seem like a terrible photo shop, but apparently it's a real thing.  For anyone who's reading this blog outside of the UK, GAME is the countries biggest game store, or at least it was when I was living there.

It's basically the equivalent of Gamestop in the US or Sweden or whatever.  You know what I mean, you walk in and the staff don't know diddly shit about anything at all.  If you ask for something that isn't a big name AAA title they give you this horrible look because they actually have to pick up the stock book and do some fucking work.  You walk in and buy used games and when you get them home they are all scratched up or have fucking jam on the disc (true story).  Idiots behind the desk will judge you based on what you're buying or what stupid piece of crap DLC you decide to pre order or not (another story for another time), basically fuck GAME, stupid piece of shit.

So the idea behind this can of fuck is that "gamers" can't be arsed to get off their arse for an hour or 2 to go and have Christmas dinner so GAME have released an entire Christmas dinner in a tin with the idea that you enjoy it over the course of the day since the thing comes in layers or some shit.  It looks fucking vile and the can looks like that brand of cat food, Whiskaz or some shit, who wants to eat something that looks like catfood?  The whole thing is only £1.99 too apparently, according to the daily mail, so you know it's going to taste like absolute shit.

Here is my problem with this though, cooking isn't hard, like at all.  Any sack of shit can cook something halfway decent and for most things it doesn't even take that long to do so.  Even when I cook something like bolognese sauce, which requires it sit there for 5 fucking hours to gather flavour, the preparation to get it to that stage takes about an hour, tops.

Back when I was a university student, I was convinced I couldn't cook.  I would eat ready meals and I was so inept at it that I didn't even want to boil pasta because I was worried I'd overcook it and just waste my time or some shit.  Then I went and got a girlfriend so I decided I can't just remain inept forever, and after a short time just simply googling a recipe and trying to follow it, I made something decent in about 30 minutes. 

Now, a few years later it turns out that cooking is actually really fucking easy and quick and with the power of google and the nearby supermarket there isn't really anything I can't make anymore.  I'm happy that I developed a new skill, my wife is happy I can now cook pretty good food and my body is happy because anything I make myself is guaranteed to be healthier than anything that comes out of a fucking tin.

So GAME, fuck you and fuck your stupid Christmas dinner in a tin bullshit.  Cooking Christmas dinner isn't even that hard, and I'm saying that as someone who lives in a country where most of the population doesn't own a goddamn oven.  I wouldn't be surprised if it really was just a can of Whiskaz with the label changed.

Absolutely disgusting, just like your shops and service.

Sega! Drop Sonic and Revive the Following....

So, anyone who has played a Sonic game past Sonic Adventure 2 Battle knows that Sonic is basically a giant pile of steaming shit.  Even if the last few games have been passable, they still aren't anywhere nearly as good as they used to be.  All any Sonic fan ever wants is for Sega to release a good, fast Sonic game devoid of all his stupid fucking friends (except maybe Tails) but this never ever happens.

So it's about time Sega just admit it, they aren't going to make another Sonic game that will ever live up to it's legacy, ever.  So here is what Sega should do; drop Sonic and breath life into 3 dead titles and try to actually put some effort into making them so that all the long forgotten fans like me and many others can get mad hype and throw all our money into the Sega coffers.

So if they were to do this, which 3 titles should be brought back from the dead?  Well let me tell you!

1. Shenmue

This is a fucking no brainer, right here.  Just go and look at the recent twittering from tons of fans basically begging for a Shenmue 3.  The ones that aren't begging for a Shenmue 3 are begging for a Shenmue 1+2 HD Collection.  WHY ARE THEY NOT DOING THIS?!  If Sega released a Shenmue 3 and a HD Collection, they would be swimming in so much money that they would be able to afford to provide every employee with their own private jet and still have money left over to fund the other 2 games I'm about to suggest.  Seriously Sega, get a clue and get on this fucking project already, jesus christ man.

2. Vectorman

If you don't know what Vectorman is, you are seriously missing out.  This was a game released in 1995 on the Mega Drive and it was a side scrolling game where you played as a robot shooting the ever loving shit out of loads of other robots.  The cool thing about this game was that the visuals were really slick for it's time.  Cool backgrounds, some interesting levels, vectorman animated all cool like, it was amazing.  On top of that he had this thing where he could transform into different thinks like a robot fish, a drill, a bomb, a frog, a train...all sorts of shit.  There was a Vectorman 2 but that was America only so I never played it, and still haven't.  There was some talk of a Vectorman 3 for the PS2 but it looked fucking terrible so it got cancelled. 

So Sega, NOW is that time to dig out this title, go get a new developer to begin work on a proper Vectorman 3 and keep all that charm that the first game had, none of that grimdark "I'm a serious robot" shit you were planning in the first place.  3D is fine, but just make sure it looks and plays good.  I dunno, release it on the WiiU or something and let us customise Vectorman on the fly with the touchscreen or some shit, just get on it.

and finally! 3. Dynamite Cop

If you owned a Sega Saturn you may know of a game called Die Hard Arcade.  If you don't know Die Hard Arcade, here is a video of me and my friend being shit at it.

Man that was a long time ago....what a terrible video......

Anyway, Die Hard Arcade actually had fuck all to do with Die Hard and it Japan it was called Dynamite Deka.  Dynamite Cop on the Dreamcast was the sequel to Die Hard Arcade and known as Dynamite Deka 2 in Japan.  Now with that confusion out of the way, these games are great beat em' up games that need to be brought back. 

Make a classic 3D beat em' up like this, maybe add in some online co-op play, maybe a 4 player option, improve that combat systems and whatnot and there's a good modern game there.  It's been a long LOOONG time since we saw a proper beat em' up and it would be nice if this genre saw a bit of a revival in the next gen. 

I know that if Sega said they were working on a Dynamite Deka 3, then I'd buy at least 20 copies, just sayin.

So that's it, get rid of that blue idiot and bring back these 3 great games.  We get great games, you get boatloads of money, seriously, heed my advice!

Tau and Friends Play Silent Bomber Part 12

This one isn't a million years long this time! Honest!  My good buddy protects that woman while she hacks things with her computor.

John Romero Made Me His Bitch

Oh man, that marathon ended in complete catastrophe

Allow me to tell you the story.  Last night I held the Daikatana "Until I Win" marathon, and for the first marathon of this kind, it did not end well at all.  First of all, you have to realise that Daikatana is complete and utter garbage of the highest level.  The AI is awful on both your enemies and your allies, the levels are all murky and shit so it's hard to see anything, the guns are all crap and unsatisfying, the story is a mess etc etc etc.

Despite all that, with the people who were with me in the stream both in Twitch chat and on mumble, I was kind of having a good time.  It's one of those games that's SO bad that there is a certain fun to be had by raging at it as you suffer through.  The fact that I had received charity money to do this made the suffering at least bearable.

But then it happened.

I was playing through the Vault level, I had just rescued some girl and now I was having to wrestle with 2 AI buddies.  Given that the stage is full of ladders and elevators this made things particularly frustrating.  Anyway I soldiered through and got to the end of the stage.  Now something to consider before I go into the next bit of the plot is that both me and my allies are at nearly full HP at this point.

The level loads in and suddenly BAM! I'm fucking dead.  I reload my save and I dodge a little bit then a few shots later BAM! my ally is dead, game over.  Rinse and repeat this god knows how many fucking times before I just had to call it quits. 

I can wrestle with bad design and and I can deal with horrible gameplay in the name of charity, but I could literally progress no further past this point because I was being insta gibbed at the fucking doorway to the stage.

So, even though the marathon's failure TECHNICALLY wasn't my fault, I'm going to match the donation provided by the guy who donated for this thing in the first place, and then give him a choice of incentive.  So if anything my failure just means more charity money, which isn't really a bad thing at the end of the day, it's just my pride that hurts.

Speaking of money, over a very short period of time, a total of £35 was raised, which is great considering I have streamed for longer and raised less in the past, so big thanks to all who donated.  If you include my punishment donation that makes the total £60, so not bad for a 6 hour stream all things considered.

The December marathon will be Tomba Until I Win and given that Tomba is a good, well made game, that one should be WAYYYY more successful!  So look foward to that one.  Finally, I'm going to review the part of the stream where it all went wrong and if it's interesting enough I'll upload it!

Tau and Friends Play Silent Bomber Part 11

I'm don't even have any excuses for this episode, I'm just terrible.

Stream Marathon! Daikatana Until I Win!

Right, a long long time ago someone donated a little bit of charity money and a copy of a really shitty game, and then demanded that I play it live on stream! 

Well the date has been set, unless something goes wrong between now and then the marathon will start on Saturday the 30th of November and end whenever I finish the damn game.  For this event only there is 1 donation incentive.  If £100 gets added to the charity fund between now and Saturday, I'll play the game on Hard mode, if not I'll play on normal. 

I'm already suffering but if you really don't like me then donating to charity is a good way to get me to suffer more!  Hopefully I'll see you in the Stream chat come Saturday!  Twitch and donation links are on the right hand side of this page!

Next Gen is Really Grinding My Gears

OK, this is fucking stupid. 

Not too long ago we saw the release of the PS4 and Xbox One, something that should be an exciting time with all these new games and fancy hardware to play it on.  But no, it's not an exciting time, it's a time filled with loud obnoxious noises, sighing and eye rolling.  Let me show you what I mean.

That's a montage of the Xbox One making horrible grinding noises when you put the disc in, and there is a PS4 version as well.  Not to mention that since the release of these systems, a great deal of my twitter feed is "oh, my PS4 broke" or people asking questions like "just how many people have faulty systems?" and then getting a ton of replies.

This is fucking unacceptable!  When I bought my fat PS3 when MGS4 came out, I had absolutely no issues, and until it got stolen there were no problems.  Same with my slim PS3, which is preowned as well, zero problems there.  I had no problems when I was gifted my first Mega Drive, no problems when the N64 came out, nothing for the Dreamcast and then in 2013 suddenly the cutting edge systems have stupid high failure rates.

Microsoft and Sony...why fucking bother?  I don't want to have to worry about my potential purchase of a PS4 or Xbox One maybe failing because YOU can't fucking quality control.  One or two faulty systems is just tough luck, that shit happens, but THIS much faulty hardware being sold to people is a fucking joke and you should be ashamed.

Just go look at twitter for a while or do some searching on YouTube and there are tons of people with videos or tweets about how their shit isn't working as intended or just flat out not working at all.  Hell, the systems are less than a month old and already the term "Blue Light of Death" has been made up for the PS4.

So until this shit gets fixed, fuck next gen.  Right now there aren't any games I even want to play and even if they were I wouldn't want to spend the money because my system probably won't work.  So yeah, get fucked Sony and Microsoft, how about making something that works before taking peoples money?  Bunch of arseholes need to go drown in a lake of dicks.

Mainstream Gaming and Being "Offended"

OK here we go again, more failings of video game "journalism"

The above picture is from something on Rock Paper Shotgun where some guy has an interview with a member of Blizzard staff, and instead of talking about the actual video game, he decide to whine about their choice of costume designs.  The staff member in question though gives a disinterested response and gets him to leave, which is the correct way to deal with social justice morons like that.

Then said social justice moron takes to RPS to go and write an overlong, silly article about why it's offensive, why you should be offended and why the guy from Blizzard that was interviewed is a unfeeling monster.

I'm not going to link to the article because I don't want to give morons like the RPS staff clicks and therefore money, but if you really care I'm sure you can do some googling around.

Anyway, I'm not going to write (ANOTHER) article on why these social justice types of people who rant on about how women look in games are fucking stupid, I've done that enough, what I am going to say is that people need to get over the fact that maybe just some games aren't made for them.

Yes, this is a problem that has come with gaming going into the mainstream.  Now everyone thinks that they have a right to experience every game the same way everyone else does.  This is really what's at the core of his overlong rant about the Blizzard interview.  He's suggesting that people design not sexy women because it may make a certain section of players uncomfortable or whatever. 

Well newsflash for you Mr Grayson and your SJW crowd, maybe not all games are made for you and people like you.  Maybe you don't factor into that little thing called a target demographic so what right do you and people like you have for parading around making artists change their work?  The writer of that interview is very lucky I don't work for Blizzard or I would have told him to fuck off for wasting my time and have him forcibly removed from the building and getting a swift boot up the arse on the way out.

What I'm not saying however, is "don't be offended by things".  Being offended is fine, if you are thin skinned to the point where a lady in the thong in a video game makes you upset, then fine, so be it, but shut the fuck up about it.  There are a great deal of people who don't care and there are also a great deal of people who just see it and don't think anything about gender politics or whatever, because it's just a hot woman in a video game, nothing wrong with that.

If you want to make these arguments about gender politics then fine but keep it restritced to your own personal blogs or whatever and stop throwing bitch fits when people don't want to hear it.  Even if you consider gaming as an art form your arguments still don't hold up because 100% of art isn't there to make just YOU happy, you selfish sack of arse.

In terms of actual arguments about this issue, this post is a bit lacking because I'm TRYING to keep it short.  So the too long; didn't read version of this post would be.

Yes, we get it, you're upset about women being attractive, please fuck off to a different game if you don't like this one.  Maybe stupid non-games that pander to your "needs" like Gone Home are more appropriate.

Personal Best Double Bill

My speed running skills have been getting better and better over the last few days!

Yesterday I streamed some speed runs of Hotline Miami live and ended up getting a new personal best time and then this morning I streamed some They Bleed Pixels and got a new personal best time in that as well! 

So right now, I'm sharing the runs with you for your viewing pleasure.  They don't come anywhere near any records but I'm quite proud of them, so even if you only watch a few minutes of it I'll be happy

Shenmue 3: Good Idea, Bad Idea?

Very recently, I have been made aware of a rather sizable community of people all in support of a Shenmue 3 to be released.  This makes me very happy, Shenmue and its sequel are amazing games and it's a story that has been left unfinished for years now and that's just wrong.

Just to fill people in who don't know, Shenmue was a Dreamcast game that came out in Japan at the end of 1999 and in the year 2000 for everyone else.  It was, at it's core, an adventure game about a guy called Ryo Hazuki trying to get revenge for his father who was killed in front of him by a dude called Lan Di.  The player would walk around town, talking to people, gathering clues and items to progress the plot and having a few fights on the way.

Now after reading that you may think "what's the big deal?" but that's the problem with Shenmue, it's really REALLY hard to describe.  It's so much more than just a bog standard adventure game and there is so much to do crammed into what today would be called a small playable area it's staggering.  Aside from the adventurey revenge plot stuff, there is basically a Japan life simulator in here.  As Ryo you are free to go to shops, talk to basically anybody in the street who all have fully voiced lines, play games in the game center, enjoy some slots, collect gatcha figures....the list of stuff to do is fucking huge.

Hell, if you bought Shenmue you had access to full versions of fucking Hang On and Space Harrier as goddamn MINI GAMES.  Games that you could literally sit there and play for hours are nought but side attractions in the world of Shenmue.  So if the story is so good, and the game play is awesome with lots of content, how could a potential Shenmue 3 possibly be a bad idea?

To put it simply, gaming has changed and it's changed a lot.  Shenmue, as good as it is, is a slow methodical game.  Even the battle system revolves around finding spacious areas to practice in because it's not a simple one and if you don't put in at least a little time getting the hang of it, you'll be screwed.  There's also a lot of aspects to Shenmue that really weren't all that good but gave the game it's own charm.  The voice acting is a good example of this, it's kind of slow, stilted and weird in a lot of cases but not once has anyone called it bad, including myself.  Although, if you sit our current generation of gamers in front of a Shenmue title and I guarantee it'll be nothing but complaints.

Yes, this is what I'm worried about, Shenmue being drastically changed to suit the lowest common denominator.  The battle system being simplified, the amount of freedom being reduced for a "more streamlined experience", the once well placed and well done QTE's turned into a massive annoyance as they just do most of the combat for you, just like the list of the old games positives, the list of things that could go wrong is also huge.

Not that I don't have any faith in good old, Yu Suzuki.  I'm sure if he's in charge of a Shenmue 3 it'll turn out just fine, but keep in mind that he works for Sega, the company that basically wrote the rulebook on how to shit on your own gaming series'.  The other risk a Shenmue 3 runs is that it might come way to close to becoming another Yakuza game.

Not that there is anything at all wrong with Yakuza, but Yakuza is NOT Shenmue, not even close.  If a Shenmue 3 came out and it played just like a Yakuza game I can guarantee there would be the same amount of fan outcry as if you made the game shit.

Don't get me wrong with any of this post, I WANT a Shenmue 3, I really really do.  Nothing pains me more than to see something this good go unfinished and not get the degree of love and attention that it deserves.  My point is that Shenmue was very much a game of it's time and if it was made now, I can guarantee that Sega would not allow it to be made the way that we want it, it would be changed because they want it to sell.  Remember, gaming is now this mainstream thing filled with people who don't want to put in the time and effort to experience something like the people back in my day.

One final point to address.  There is some talk of people wanting a Shenmue HD collection, which sounds like a great idea at first, but let me just leave you with one image about why you might want to be careful with that idea too.

Yeah, this isn't the good old days of the Dreamcast anymore, let's pray that maybe something will happen with the Shenmue series, but let's also be very careful what we wish for.

Tau and Friends Play Silent Bomber Part #10

Paul takes up the pad and fights a different kind of enemy in this episode!  Enjoy!

Diretide!!!

Oh man, I do love me a good old DotA event! 

Diretide is the new DotA event that will continue on to around the 28th I think and it's being held in November because there was some update that threw their schedule off, so we get our trick or treating thing in November.  Better late than never though!

Diretide is a special game mode where each team has a big old bucket of candy on their side of the map.  The idea is that you have to kill monsters to gain candy and go drop it off at your bucket and the team with the most candy at the end wins the game.  Although, you can hop on along with your team into your enemies base and steal candy from their bucket, so a good balance of offence and defence is required if you want to win.

After a little while, the game ends and the winning team is granted a bunch of items, then the big monster that walks around the map sits his ass down and the 10 of you team up to go kill him as many times as you can within a time limit.  The more times you kill him, the better loot you get at the end so the great thing about this mode is that you're guaranteed some kind of prize just for participating.

It's a fun little mode and the games are way shorter than your usual DotA match, so you can hop on for half an hour, play a little bit and still come away with something for your time.  The problem is that it's a little bit broken with some characters being way better than others and some just being outright useless, but for a little mini game it's forgivable. 

The other thing is that there are groups of players who have figured out how to get the big monster kill count really really high, and this means that you will be seeing the same handful of characters basically every game, which can get a little bit dull.

But all things considered it's a fun little mode and if you're like me and don't give a flying fuck about item drops, the stuff you can sell on the steam marketplace means that you'll probably get to buy a cheap free game at the end of it, even if you only played a couple of games a day.

So if you don't already play DotA, go give it a shot.  People are a lot more forgiving of new players during an event because winning really isn't all that important here, just have fun and get some free stuff.

Silent Bomber and Blog Updates!

Right, it finally arrived! My internet in my apartment is now up and running! So let's kick things off with an episode of Silent Bomber!

Then a small update now that I have the internet again.

A while back I recieved a small donation to do a Daikatana marathon on stream, well this will take place pretty soon, I just need to set my stream up which I'll begin doing as soon as I make this post.  I'll post the dates on the facebook group so check there if you want to know the details, otherwise just follow the twitch and just wait for my thing to pop up.

After the Daikatana marathon there will be a Tomba marathon at some point so that's another thing to look forward too!  Also I'll be getting the episodes of Silent Bomber up at a much more rapid pace from now, so don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel!

OK, Mobile Gaming isn't THAT bad

Mobile gaming is always something that I've completely disregarded as a load of complete crap but since coming to Japan and not having a stable internet connection as well as being busy setting up a new place and whatnot, I've not really had the chance to sit down and play proper games for an extended period.

So of course, to keep myself from going insane, I've been making do with what I can with my iPhone and I'm actually pleasantly surprised with some of the things that I've been finding hidden deep within the app store.

So I'm sat here trying to beat my high score on Super Monsters Ate My Condo thinking that all the games I've been playing are pretty fun and with the exception of one title, don't try and go out of the way to try and squeeze money out of you in the form of micro transactions.  Not only that but a quick glance round the paid section of the App Store I've found all sorts of interesting looking things including full on RPGs made by Square Enix as well as all sorts of funky looking beat your high score time sinks, which is great for this kind of system.  So taking all that into consideration, why does mobile gaming have such a bad rep from people like me who player "proper" games.

Well I think I figured it out.

Angry Birds is pretty much entirely at fault for giving mobile gaming the horrible reputation that it's built up over the years.  I've played Angry Birds a little bit on my old Android phone, and it was fine, it made for a good distraction while I was ignoring my university teachers during my 3 month stint of depression in Paris, but it wasn't anything special, it was just a shitty little phone game I used to whittle away the time until I got to my PC at home.

But then you look around you and Angry Birds has this unreal amount of popularity.  There isn't just one game, there's like 5 or 6 of the damn things, all exactly the same but just themed a little differently.  Then you walk into shops and see Angry Birds merchandise clogging up the shelf like headphones or shoes or whatever.

So then people like me go and try it out, discover that it's nothing more than a mildly entertaining little puzzle game, get frustrated at the amount of hype people steep on it and then just blanket label all of mobile gaming as the same brain dead bullshit as a result.

Well luckily I've discovered not everything on the App Store is as shit as Angry Birds or whatever crappy social game is topping the lists, you just have to dig around for them.  Things like Mahjong Mobile, Punch Girl, Zenonia and other half way entertaining games are buried under the crap, so you really have to dig deep to find stuff like that. 

Although the other problem is that why would you do that when you can just fire up steam or your nearby games system and play something WAY, WAYYY better?  Still, the point is that my opinion of mobile gaming has been changed and now I just have 1 more thing to enjoy on boring train rides in case my DS or PSP/Vita batteries die.

Next Gen Attitudes Are Worrying

We are really close now to the launch dates for the next gen systems and it's an exciting time to be a fan of video games as we get to try out all the cool new hardware coming out.

Microsoft and their Xbox One are basically writing the rulebook on how not to launch a console, PS4 is quietly doing its thing and impressing people but isn't completely devoid of it's own bullshit and the WiiU, the one who got out the gate early, is just chugging away in the background producing a decent game once every couple of months.

So what do I mean when I say that the attitudes are worrying?  Well, think about it, what do you buy a games console for?  Playing video games on, right?  So what's everyone talking about when the topic of next gen comes up? Anything but fucking video games.

Sure, there is plenty of talk of hardware, resolutions, capabilities, if it needs online or not, the ability to play used games etc. etc. but where is any of the talk of the actual games?  Just thinking about the lineups for the Xbox One and PS4, there isn't anything that has me jumping up and down thinking I just HAVE to buy the new systems at launch to play that one really good game.

I remember back when the Dreamcast came out, people were pretty impressed with how the thing looked compared to stuff like the PS1 but the FOCUS was the fucking games.  I remember getting seeing footage for things like Power Stone and Jet Set Radio and thinking that I had to have a Dreamcast just to play those damn games.

That game focus seems to have been lost a little bit and with it so has the fun in a new console launch.  Back then, it didn't matter what system you were buying because no matter what you bought you were going to have fun with it.  Even the fan boys were happy if their buddies got the other thing, because then they had a chance to play it and despite many an argument being had over which one was "better" at the end of the day it didn't matter because you were still having fun.

That's gone now, and it's been replaced with technological pissing contests between the major companies and which system gets bought basically boils down to which one is fucking over the consumer the least.  Add a bunch of elitist PC pricks in the background screaming about how awesome their stuff is and all it makes for is a very tiring and unexciting start to the next gen.

There isn't a single game for the next gen systems that I have seen thus far that has made me excited, and that's sad.  If this next gen release period has proved anything to me, it's that gaming isn't about fun anymore, it's about which group of fan boys has the best machine.

I'm sure once the dust settles and some decent games get released, both systems will end up being pretty good in the end.  Hell, I'm sure even the WiiU will end up with a decent library a few more years down the line.  But the point is, that all this outcry at business policy and constant crying over things like screen resolution and frames per second has just pissed me off and now I don't give a flying rats ass about "next gen" anymore.

I'll be keeping an eye out for that one game that eventually makes me excited enough to drop money on a system, but until then, I'll be just sat here biding my time until Dark Souls 2.