Identity Gaming 2019

Well holy shit it's already nearly the end of 2018.  It's been a bit of a shit year for the Identity Gaming blog and YouTube channel mainly due to a lot of personal shit happening involving me changing jobs twice but at least the Twitch stream is still going strong (www.twitch.tv/taurinensis, follow plz)

Anyway instead of dwelling on that negative nonsense let's just look forward to the coming year.  Here is some content that you can expect  to see throughout 2019.

More YouTube Stuff

The YouTube side of things has been a bit neglected so I'm going to put a bit more effort into that side of things.  I've actually had a Shovel Knight playthrough in the can for MONTHS but put off uploading it so I could do that stupid Lone Survivor playthrough in October.

Speaking of that, the 3 episodes of Lone Survivor have been deleted from the channel.  I wasn't happy with them and the glitched difficulty really fucked me off and made me not want to play it.  One day I'll do it again but for now I'm just fucking it off and focusing on other things. 

Still though, I have many a game that I can make a play through for that isn't a glitchy piece of shit AND there are plans for all sorts of fancy new series to upload.  I do want to expand on some of my previous, untouched things such as the thing where I talked about Japan exclusive arcade games or my series highlighting free shit for you to enjoy.  I'm also going to start a hall of fame/hall of shame so when people ask me questions like "Hey what's your favorite game" or "what do you think of X" I can just link them a video instead of having to tell people for the 95 billionth time that my favorite game is Panzer Dragoon Sa......I mean Bad Rats.

I'm also going to try my hand at some semi serious vlogging as I try to document my entire year in a weekly video that I'll upload every Sunday.  I'll talk about shit I'm playing, give site updates if there are any and if I come across and video game news that I feel is worth touching on I'll comment on that too.  I'm doing this 50% because I'm a self important little prick that craves that e-attention and 50% because when I think back to 2018 I can't seem to remember anything that I played other than Dragon Quest 11.  That either means that 2018 was a shit year for games (not true) or I'm just a forgetful idiot (more than likely true) so please join me through my 2019 journey. 

The Wheel of NES

I fucking love Wheel Decide, it's like my favorite website.  My other favorite thing ever is to set myself stupid challenges that I'll probably never finish but I like to think that maybe one day I won't be such a quitter so here I go doing something publicly so maybe the potential jeering and disrespect at my failure will make me not just give up as soon as I get bored.

So I've made a wheel on Wheel Decide of 100 NES games.  I'm going to play them all on stream (link above, don't forget to follow) and see how long it takes me to finish all of them.  I built the list by googling "best 100 NES games", using most of those and then taking some titles from the Angry Video Game Nerd playlist and throwing them in there so that maybe I can entertain some of you with my suffering.  Although Silver Surfer is in there and despite what that guy said about it, that game is awesome and if you think it's bad then you're just wrong. 

The Year Of Spookyness

So my favorite holiday season is Halloween.  I'm in love the the genre of horror as a whole and every year I plan all these great things to do for IG for Halloween and then I get busy or I go to Halloween parties and get drunk and subsequently hungover and none of this stuff ever happens.  So because I'm absolutely sick of that shit I'm just dedicating the entirety of 2019 to the horror genre. 

Expect to see a lot of horror related content in the coming 12 months be it about books, movies, games, whatever, if it's horror, I'm blogging about it.

Finally, despite all these cool plans for streams, videos, posts etc. don't forget that I'm still doing this all for charity so if you enjoy the content please throw a donation or two to the Alzheimer's Society charity.  It would be awesome if we could hit the current goal this year and maybe get a nice ways into the next one.  I'm planning to overhaul the incentives page so sit tight and some cool things might happen with that soon too.

Happy new year!

Tau Plays Lone Survivor Part 3

Tau Plays Lone Survivor Part 2

Tau Plays Lone Survivor Part 1

3 scary games for the 31st

Well Halloween is finally upon us people!  Now, the big Halloween nights out around Japan all went down last weekend, since Halloween itself falls on a Wednesday and people are working and whatnot.  So! If you need some living room scares, I'm here to provide you with 3 games that may get the fear flowing.

In case anyone cares the game in the top picture is Fatal Frame (or Project Zero)

GAME NUMBER 1! THE BINDING OF ISAAC!

HOORAY! I finally get to talk about this thing again!  You may be scratching your head at this first pick since The Binding of Isaac isn't all that scary really, at least not at face value.  No, the Binding of Isaac is just disturbing, in both plot and imagery.  Apart from your enemies being all horrible disfigurations from a babies nightmare, if you spend enough time in the basement then you'll realise just how grim Isaacs tale really is, and once all is revealed, it's really quite unsettling.  So if you want a Halloween game that wont make you lose sleep at night, Isaac is the way to go!

GAME NUMBER 2! LONE SURVIVOR!

This little indie gem really impressed me when I fired it up for the first time.  It's one of the only horror games that is actually trying to be scary rather than just startling.  While you may not think a game with 2D pixel art could be all that scary, the atmosphere in this thing is oppressive as all hell.  It's not very long, but the feelings of dread and panic are delivered in such huge amounts that staying in the world of Lone Survivor for extended periods is quite a strain on the senses.

GAME 3! HALF-LIFE 2!

What the fuck am I talking about? Half Life 2? scary? Well hear me out.

When I say Half Life 2, I don't mean Half Life 2 itself, I mean the absolutely staggering numbers of mods available for this game.  Of that large number of mods, a good deal of them are scary mods, and good ones at that too!  Nightmare House 2 and Grey are 2 really good ones just to get you started, but you can find so many scary fucking mods for this thing it'll make your head spin.  So fire up google and get to it.

There you have it folks, a good way to burn a wednesday evening at home for halloween.  Also, don't worry if you are a gamer on a budget, the above titles are cheap as chips so you won't be breaking the bank for any of these games.

Lone Survivor Post Game Thoughts

Well I was hoping that I would be able to give some thoughts on Counter Strike: Global Offensive today, but it isn't coming out for another 5 hours so since I beat Lone Survivor today I'll talk about that instead.

I'm not going to give any spoilers so don't worry if you're in the middle of playing it, or thinking about buying it, the story shall remain intact for you.

Anyway, first lets talk about some of the good things.  This game is definitely a step in the right direction for survival horror.  From start to finish, the art style and sound design are extremely atmospheric and the game does a good job of keeping you on edge.  The need to eat and sleep, I thought, were really good features and it's nice to see a game in this genre class "survival" as more than having enough ammo and healing at any one time.  The most important thing though, is that I was actually scared by this game.  At one point I tried to play alone, in the dark, with some headphones on, and wimped out of that pretty quickly.  Sure, maybe you'll call me a pussy but there's something about this game that just...bothers me, something seems extremely off about the whole plot that shakes me right down to my core.  But you know what, that's the sign of a good fucking horror game, and I've not felt anything like that for a LOOONG time.

But this game isn't all glowing praise and loveliness, there are some things I didn't like about it.  The fact that there are only 2 real enemy types in this game really annoys me quite a bit.  I'm aware that the game was largely developed by one guy, but surely your mind can produce more than just a thin skin monster and a fat skin monster, right?  Yes, I am aware there are 2 bosses but even if you include them that's still only 4 enemies you ever fight, it's a bit weak.  It's not a massive problem but by the end of the game, the enemies lose their impact because you've already figured them out completely and they are no longer a threat.

The big complaint I have though is how the game trivialises it's own survival system.  I've already talked about how you need food to keep yourself going, so you know how that works, but what I didn't mention is the fact you can get differently coloured pills.  Each pill has a different effect but what it really boils down to is one giving you free ammo and one giving you free food.  I literally spent the last segment of the game offing a few enemies, blue pilling and sleeping, getting another 21 bullets and then went out killing again.  Once I figured this out, I didn't feel intimidated or scared anymore, I just felt like a murder machine.  Also if you run out of food, it's no problem because the green pill will give you some free food to carry on your journey.  Part of the tension came from having to ration your supplies but once you get hold of these pills that goes out the window.

Also, I'm aware that not using the pills or killing enemies gives you a different ending, but on the first play through I don't give a crap what ending I get, I'm just playing the game as is, and it's that first play through that will have the most impact.  Sure, doing the pacifist route may be a bit more challenging, but I've already beat the game now, it's not going to be as scary a second time.

That said, I still enjoyed this game a lot, it was an absolute blast and I would recommend it to any fans of the horror genre.  We've not had a good horror game in a long long time, but now we have something to keep us sweating until the big developers sort their fucking lives out.

Now That's Some Bullshit #5: Survival Horror

Well this blog has been filled with way too much happiness and sunshine recently, so it's time to talk about some bullshit.  Today I'm going to discuss the whole survival horror genre.

So a long long time ago, on systems long since forgotten, there was a game called Alone in the Dark.  This game is basically the great granddaddy of the genre.  At the time it wasn't called a "survival horror" game, but it's the title that basically set the standard for everything to come after.  So from the impact made by this game, we were given similar games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Fatal Frame just to name some of the most well known ones.

So, just what is a survival horror game exactly? I think this is something that needs to be cleared up

As far as setting is concerned, you're usually playing as some kind of normal man or woman, thrust into a life threatening situation that involves horrible looking beasties coming to get you.  But it isn't the beasties that make these games scary, it's the implications behind your characters situation.  A good survival horror game will make you feel as helpless and alone as the characters and that is part of the reason why Silent Hill 2 in particular is so famous.  In terms of mechanics, you are usually given a very finite supply of items in order to get to by and every situation and encounter has to be carefully planned so that you don't waste them.  You'll usually find that running away is the best option, not only because the enemies are scary, but because you as a player are terrified of being in a situation with very little to actually survive on.

But then something went wrong.

Now before anyone starts foaming at the mouth, I fucking love Resident Evil 4, it's an absolute blast, but it is NOT a survival horror game by any stretch.  What I hate is what this game caused, all the best horror franchises started to become over the shoulder third person action games.  All the atmosphere and horror of previous great titles had been thrown out the window for more cinematic action games with grotesque creatures.

It was with Dead Space that the bullshit really started to flow.  The game wasn't bad, but it wasn't scary AT ALL and it was really trying it's hardest to provide a scary game.  Sure, it had jump scares but gone was all the dread, all the mystery and all the decent characterisation.  But the genre wasn't dead here, it just took a shot to the leg.  The game that really executed this genre with a horrible bloody thump was Silent Hill: Homecoming

THIS game was the gigantic piece of shit to kill the genre good and proper, and it's not been able to recover since.  There was a standard that was expected of the Silent Hill series, and the group of knobs that worked on this game really dropped the ball.  They failed to understand anything about the horror genre in general, let alone survival horror games or even Silent Hill.

But you know what's the worst thing? Since then I have played 1 game that I can say was actually unsettling in some way, and that's just fucking sad and on top of that it's an indie game developed by 1 guy as far as I know.

The games industry really needs to go back and study these old great horror games if they ever want to make something that can be properly called a Survival Horror game again.  Until then, this entire genre is just a load of bullshit. 

Lone Survivor First Impressions

I don't even remember buying this game, I just kind of found it in my Steam list today and thought I would give it a go, and it was a decision I'm glad I made.

Now, I took one look at this thing and thought "oh great, another indie game with retro graphics using nostalgia to try and make sales".  But I was wrong, oh lord I was wrong.  Lone Survivor is probably the best survival horror game I have played since Amnesia: The Dark Descent.  You may think that's a big claim to make, but the survival horror genre is basically dead, so I'm ecstatic to get a game that's trying to bring it back.

The plot of what I've played so far is quite basic.  There has been some kind of horrible disaster and pretty much everyone is dead.  Roaming the streets and apartment buildings are these horrible faceless creatures that will just murder anyone they can get their hands on.  You're guy, is running low on supplies and has decided it's time he took action as he tries to survive and look for any potential survivors in the process.

One thing I noticed straight away about this game is the fact it's obviously quite heavily inspired by the Silent Hill series.  The monster noises and the menu sounds are extremely similar to the Silent Hill games and the overall feel is very similar to that franchise.  However, this is a very good thing.  The early Silent Hill games were extremely effective horror titles and in recent years the franchise has turned to shit, so it's nice to see an indie developer try to bring survival horror to its roots.

It's all looking very familiar

The absolute best thing about this game so far though, is the survival aspect.  Sure, health restoration and ammo for your guns are scarce, but on top of that you need to worry about sleeping and eating.  What makes this mechanic even more effective is that there isn't a meter for this thing, your character will sometimes just stop and say "starving..." or something.  It does a lot to add to horror as you never know when your going to start to get screwed by your need to eat and it means that you have to effectively plan the routes to your objectives, like you would if you were actually trying to survive a horrible situation like this.

A shit idea from SH:Origins turned into something useful

The game also makes a big deal out of the fact you don't actually need to kill anything to progress.  For any survival horror veterans you can tell from the moment this idea is introduced that it's going to affect what ending you get, but it's cool that we have the choice to sneak around everything rather than just gun it down and in fact, the sneaky option is probably more effective at scaring the player.

Well I've not gotten very far yet, but I would recommend this title so far.  If you're not happy with the current "survival horror" games, like most people aren't, then pick this one up.  I'll keep some updates on this one coming.

A curious hole in a bathroom....I wonder where that came from?!