RIP Totalbiscuit

I wake up this morning and check my Twitter and I see that a bunch of my friends and followers had liked a tweet.  Usually it's some kind of funny picture or a gaming meme but unfortunately today it was some deeply saddening news.  John "Totalbiscuit" Bain has passed away following a battle with cancer at age 33. 

If your not sure, Totalbiscuit was a game reviewer on YouTube before he retired in April following a cancer diagnosis.  I'm not usually one to follow YouTube personalities but his content was rather entertaining whether it was a review or his take on some kind of issue within the industry.  He was extremely pro consumer and would often call out shitty practices from some of the big publishers and champion smaller devs that put out quality games.  

For me personally, it was thanks to him and his series "WTF Is.." that introduced me to some quality indie titles such as Rock of Ages and Frozen Synapse which are games that would have been completely off my radar if not for his reviews.  Those videos are still kicking around on YouTube so I'd highly reccomend checking them out, you may discover some gems to add to your steam library.  

I can't imagine what his family is going through but he will be missed by the gaming community at large and it's such a shame that we lost him so early. 

Rest in Peace you beautiful British Lad 

Setting Up Let it Die

I've been very busy recently with a family visit to Japan so content has been a little thin on the ground but for Halloween I tried to do a little stream of Let it Die for the PS4.  If you've not heard of this game it's a sort of free to play hack and slash game made by Grasshopper Manufacture which plays a little like a Souls game and I think it has perma-death.  I've not really had much of a chance to play it however just setting it up was complete bullshit so I want to share my experience.

First of all just getting the game was bullshit.  I hopped onto the Playstation store and found it in the free to play section.  However, there was no download available that was free and I discovered that on the Japanese store the only option for you is one that comes with 2 units of the premium currency which I think is called Death Metals.  This means that the game was 108 yen which granted is only £0.70 but after being told that it was a free to play game I was a little pissed off about being forced to spend money on some in game shit I don't even know the purpose for.  While it was downloading I went and looked up Let it Die on the US and UK Playstation stores to find that on there the game IS actually free.  So really it's only the Japanese getting fucked over but it's still really annoying.

Anyway, the game loads up and the tutorial starts and I'm having a grand old time.  The game looks really nice, plays solidly and Death is a pretty interesting and funny character.  I'll talk more about the game itself once I manage to play it a bit more.  Once I finished the tutorial I was presented with another title screen and once I tried to hit go on that I got a big download message stuffed in my face.  Turns out the game only downloads the tutorial when you buy it and then downloads the rest later which resulted in me falling asleep while I was waiting and now I've not been able to play because I've been busy with family and work.

It looks like a really good game but the whole experience is a true testament to the really shitty side of modern gaming.