Dragons Crown: Money Grub Edition

So I was talking with my friend the other day and he said that all I do is complain on here, like I'm full of nothing but rage and negativity.  This may be partly true so I planned a bunch of blog topics so that the next handful of posts would be nothing but sunshine and rainbows but then I saw this and now I can't help complaining again.

Dragons Crown is a game that was released in 2013 for the PS3 and Vita and was a bit of a side scrolly hack and slashy affair and if there's one thing I can't be mad about it's the game itself.  If you haven't played Dragons Crown I would totally suggest picking up a copy and giving it a spin, it's really fucking fun. 

So ATLUS did this a while ago with a similar game called Odin Sphere which was awesome.  The original Odin Sphere came out on PS2 and playing a PS2 game on a modern TV can look a bit crappy, which was a shame for a game with such a beautiful art style.  Not only did it get a bit of a facelift though, it came with some extra content and tweaks to game play which made it worth buying.  I have no problem re releasing an older game if it has some, even just a little, extra or different shit in it to warrant the purchase.

Dragons Crown on the other hand is a different tale.  This is a game from just the last generation that looks just fine on the PS3.   It's not like the PS4 can do all that much to improve the look of that game really, the generational face lift is not needed here.  It feels like that sort of pointless remake that's put out just  to milk a bit of extra money from the fans, kind of like the "HD" version of The Last of Us.  Not only that though but from what I can tell after reading some of the news stories about this game, there is NOTHING new in terms of content.  The only thing I can find is that it contains all the original games original features.  It's a fucking sad day when the fact that we're not having anything removed from a remake is noteworthy.

Unless for some weird reason you don't own a PS3 (or a Vita), don't buy the £50 pro edition of the game.  Just go find a PS3 or Vita version in a store or on Amazon or something.  At time of writing the original PS3 version is available on Amazon for like £30 so save yourself the money and get the exact same game at a much lower price.

Finally the thing that irks me is the name.  It's not Dragons Crown: Remaster, it's Dragons Crown Pro Edition.  With a name like that you'd expect it to be tweaked to be harder or something.  Like, the PS2 SMT RPG Lucifer's Call (Or Nocturne depending on where you're from) in Japan has something called a "maniacs edition".  This is the version that featured slightly tougher combat, an extra hard as fuck side quest and Dante from Devil May Cry.  There's nothing "pro" about this version over the other one, it's just the same fucking game with some slightly better graphics.

Anyway, go try Dragons Crown because it's fucking sick, just don't pay out the nose for this version and grab it on PS3.  ATLUS have been good in the past with shit like P4G so don't let them get away with this crap.

Bye Bye Gawker

A lot of people like to talk about the progression of news media such as how it all started with newspapers then moved to television and now we're in an age when we can get most of our news via the internet whenever and where ever we want.  So just like newspapers with their tabloid shitrags and TV with their gossip shows and whatnot, the internet of course has its own low brow bottom of the barrel bullshit with sites like Gawker.

What happened is that a while back Gawker posted a sex tape of famous wrestler Hulk Hogan and when they were asked to take it down they refused.  Mr Hogan then proceeds to sue the shit out of them and wins this case and now Gawker have to cough up some insane amount of cash.  Of course, the guy who runs the place, Nick Denton, can't afford that so Gawker have gone tits up and have been bought by some company called Univision.  A post of their website indicates that some time soon, Gawker will be ceasing operations

So what relevance does this have to the world of gaming?  Well if you're familiar with bullshit spouting cesspit Kotaku, they were one of the many websites that were under the Gawker banner.  It hasn't been confirmed the same way it has on the main Gawker website but hopefully Kotaku will be going the same way as Gawker Media and fucking off forever.

It's incredibly satisfying to see this happen because for a long time Gawker has been one of the sites with the most bullshit for a long long time constantly spouting social justice bullshit or re-posting other peoples work and presenting it as "news".  Back in my high school days Kotaku was nicknamed Slowtaku for being so massively behind on the times when it came to delivering stories but since the whole topic of Social Justice became the main controversy for gaming, they jumped on that bandwagon so hard that I'm surprised the wheels didn't fall off. 

I think one of their most famous examples of jumping on the social justice bandwagon was around the time when Dragons Crown came out.  One of the writers called the game sexist and offensive because of one character having large breasts so the artist responded with this

This is just one example but that website is full of know-nothing writers spouting their bullshit day in day out and hopefully we can see it perish.  It sucks that people may be out of a job but that's what you get for being a bullshit spouting, click bait writing hack for so long.  Fingers crossed that Kotaku vanishes and becomes nothing but a bad memory in the next few years.

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

Stop Pandering to Idiots

If you've been reading this blog you've seen me rage from time to time about this whole feminism issue.  Well I'm not going to go on another rant about that right now, but I do want to talk about how there are certain people within the industry that need to stop pandering to these idiots.

The above picture is taken from the Polygon review of Dragons Crown, and ignoring the big 6.5 at the bottom I just want to point out the line "over-exaggerated art style alienating and gross in it's depiction of women"

This, my friends, isn't good game reviewing, it's a moron pandering to idiots on the Internet.  Sure, the depictions of women in Dragons Crown is pretty over exaggerated, but so is it's depictions of fucking EVERYBODY.

I mean look at this fucking guy. Hyper masculine, hyper macho dwarf dude with a hammer who's about to go out and bust some heads.  The over exaggerations of characters aren't limited to ass and titties, it's the whole fucking cast that's like this.  But of course, morons on the Internet like to ignore the general art style, point at the amazon's huge ass and titties and cry "sexist"

It's not just Polygon that does it and it's not just aimed at Dragons Crown either.  If you spend any amount of time reading game related stuff it'll pop up somewhere.  This needs to stop, this wave of stupid ass hole feminists is an extremely recent thing and there is no need to write reviews to please them.  There is also no need to pay any attention to them (this includes insulting them) because really they aren't after equality, they are just out to stifle artistic direction.

This whole thing is double important if you're the kind of person who thinks that games are an art form because limiting art just because it might offend someone is stupid and sort of defeats the point of art itself.

Dragons Crown isn't sexist, it's stylistic.  Games aren't sexist, they are being created for a demographic.  These people need to shut up and go away, and these "journalists" need to stop making an issue out of art styles just to drum up controversy and page views.

I seriously can't wait for the day when I can stop talking about this shit.

NOBODY PANIC! Atlus seems to be fine!

Atlus, if you are not familiar with who they are, have given us some really great games.  Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, Trauma Centre and many many more, but recently there has been some news that has made people a little worried.

Do a quick google search for "Index company bankruptcy" and you'll find that parent company to Atlus have basically fucked up big time and now they are doing the Japanese equivalent of filing for bankruptcy.

This may have you freaking your shit thinking that the future of franchises like Shin Megami Tensei or the releases of games like Dragons Crown are in danger, but strangely enough they are not.  I have no idea how the fuck big business works, but if you follow up your google searches you'll find that for our friends at Atlus it's all business as usual.

Dragons Crown is going to be getting released just fine, SMT4 is getting a western release and really they don't seem to be having any trouble making games.  So let's all not panic just yet, everything seems OK and we don't have to give up on that SMTxFire Emblem game just yet, but if you are a fan make sure you buy SMT4 and Dragons Crown, make sure they get the funds to make more great games.

Please Games Journalism, fucking stop

Fuck.....it's almost impossible to enjoy this hobby when I'm surrounded on all side by whiny, thin skinned little pricks who don't have anything better to do with their time than complain about things.

So here is the deal, I wake up this morning and I'm looking around the internet when my attention is brought to an article on Gamasutra.  Now before I go on, for those that don't know, Gamasutra is a gaming news website that is quite well known for being read by developers and people in the industry.  I don't go on it very often but most of the stuff I have read from there has been good or if it hasn't been good at least it's about games.

So at the time of writing this article (24th April 7:25 in Japan) I can see a lot of game stuff on there, but there is something else there that pisses me off.  The TOP story is about fucking feminism, a few stories down from that is some drivel about race in games and a few posts down from THAT is some writer not worth his salt moaning about some Japanese artist implied that some other guy was gay because he said his art was no good.

JESUS. FUCKING. CHRIST.  Shut the hell up already

The article I read in the most detail was the one about the Japanese artist, so let me sum that up for you.  Some games journalist who isn't very good at his job looks at the above picture and then says that the artist isn't very good or some such crap.  The artist, in response to this posts a picture of a load of fat naked men from the same game and says "maybe you'd like this instead"  So then this OTHER guy makes a post on gamasutra about how the Japanese guy is being homophobic and feels "betrayed" and all other such crap.

You know what this isn't? FUCKING. VIDEOGAMES!  If you can't handle reading some dudes schoolyard insult about how maybe someone likes men then maybe you should just climb back into your little care bubble and never fucking leave.  Someone implying someone else is gay isn't damaging to the gay community.  He isn't rallying the rest of the Dragons Crown development team against gay rights, he just made a fucking schoolboy comment to a guy on twitter or facebook or whatever the fuck it was because the guy irritated him a bit.  Grow a backbone and write about something worth fucking writing about.

But you know what?  I don't see this in Japan and I don't see it on Japanese websites.  I can look at a Japanese gaming website and read about fucking games.  I can talk to Japanese people on the internet and in forums about fucking video games and subjects like feminism, racism or homophobia aren't even the in same fucking realm as that shit.  It's a lot easier to enjoy games over here because people are more focused on good games and less focused on filling slow news days with fucking garbage like this.

I'm not offended by burly, over sexualised men in video games.  I'm not offended when a villan has a British accent and I certainly wasn't offended when Lara Croft killed god knows how many men in Tomb Raider because I was too busy having fun with the fucking VIDEO GAME.  You don't have a real cause to fight for so you just make up controversy so you can feel way more important than you actually are.

Bottom Line: Shut up and write about fucking games