Windjammers

If you follow the site/twitter/twitch much you'll know that I have an absolutely massive backlog of games to get through and because the list is so huge, it's not very often I allow myself to just sit and enjoy more simple games that don't really have an "ending" as such.  Sure, there's a single player mode in Windjammers where you beat all the characters but in a "sports" game like this or a fighting game, finishing it isn't really the focus so titles like that tend to fall by the wayside for me.

That said though, I recently sat down at a friends place and just enjoyed some good old fashioned arcade action and one of the games we spent a pretty significant amount of time on was Windjammers and good Lord is it amazing.

Windjammers is an extremely simple game since essentially it's just a supped up version of Pong.  There are 6 characters to chose from that each have a different power and speed stat and then you play up to 3 sets of 30 seconds each (by default) trying to throw a frisbee into the goals at the end of your opponents side of the court.  There are 3 point zones and 5 point zones and you can also score some cheeky points by making your opponent fail to catch the frisbee.  Each character also has a sort of special move where they will charge their throw and then launch the frisbee in some kind of physics defying way.

That's basically it, there's some other things like being able to throw the frisbee crazy fast and a couple of times me and my buddy got the frisbee to sort of curve in a weird way but we weren't playing long enough to really figure the specifics of those moves but for the most part that's the entire game.  Like Pong, Windjammers, especially when played with a friend, is the kind of game you can just kick back and play for a good few hours without it getting boring.  It's easy to play and understand too which means that it also makes for a pretty good party game.  Matches are short so there won't be much sitting around, it's fast paced and occasionally some crazy stuff can start happening once both players start launching supers all over the place, it's an all around solid experience.

My only real criticism of the game is the price tag.  It's available for PS4 with a price tag of $15 which is a little steep considering how bare bones it is but if you're the kind who has guests around a lot to play games, this is a great one to break out and it's something that even the less experienced members of the group can enjoy right away.  Also considering it was originally released as an old arcade game, the price tag won't be an issue for....certain users.

It doesn't look like much at first glance but Windjammers is easily some of the most fun I've had with a multiplayer game in a long time.  Grab a copy, grab some friends and go have yourself a grand old time.

Video Games, the Olympics and stupidity

I think anyone who has even a passing interest in video games is aware of how much of a thing e-sports have become.  Most people are familiar with the big competitive games like League of Legends or Starcraft 2.  You probably have heard of certain big events such as Dreamhack in Sweden or the EVO fighting game tournament just to name a couple.

E-Sports have become so much of a thing that they are now being broadcast on TV the same way you'd broadcast any other sports.  When I was living in Sweden a few years ago I watched the Dreamhack Starcraft 2 tournament on the TV as it was happening live and on the plane to Rome two videos under the "TV Shows" section of the entertainment were finals from a DotA2 and Hearthstone tournament.

I think even ESPN are showing LoL, DotA and Hearthstone on TV and we also have Twitch which is basically the place to go for live feeds of tournaments so it's safe to say that the e-sports scene has come a fair way.

Then I hear that there's been talk of putting e-sports in the Olympics which is an interesting topic for discussion.  I can totally see why some would see e-sports having a rightful place in the Olympics but I can also understand why some people wouldn't want them there either.  But that's not what I'm here to talk about with this post.

This is Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee.  If you take a quick look at his Wikipedia page you can clearly see he's a well educated man and some kind of ex-fencing beast that took home a gold medal in 1976.  But just because he's got some decent academics and can wield a foil like a pro doesn't make him immune from saying some of the stupidest shit I've ever heard in my life.  Here's a quote

“We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people, This doesn’t match with video games, which are about violence, explosions and killing. And there we have to draw a clear line.”
[Source: https://www.sporttechie.com/no-violent-video-games-in-the-olympics-says-ioc-president/ ]

What in the name of fuck is wrong with this guy.  Video games are about violence, explosions and killing?  This is the kind of stupid statement I expect to hear from my elderly relatives that barely know what a computer even is, not the head of the IOC.  There are good arguments for and against putting e-sports in the Olympics like I said before but games being "violent" isn't one of them.

The olympic is host to a number of combat sports which could be seen as violent.  I mean this guy making this statement used to be a fucking Fencer.  I could easily make some kind of ignorant bullshit comment like him and say something like "We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people, this doesn't match with fencing which is just stabbing and slashing at folks with bits of metal"

It sounds to me like Mr Bach is just an old, ignorant man who has a tired old view of gaming and doesn't want to do ANY research on the topic and expand his knowledge on the topic.  Go and watch any kind of analytical video on a game like Starcraft, Street Fighter or Counter Strike and you can easily see that there's so much more going on that just "violence, killing and explosions". 

There's no place in 2017 for stupid, ignorant and misguided comments like that.  Should video games be in the event? I don't know, but should they be disregarded entirely because of "violence"?  Hell no and that idea is so fantastically fucking stupid that my head might just explode violently and kill me in reaction to reading something that dumb. 

I Don't Get Sports Games

I like to play basically every single genre of games, I don't care if it's a military FPS or a swords and sorcery RPG, it's all good to me.  However there is one genre of game that I tend to stay quite far away from and that's sports games.

I am not a sportsman and I tend to stay away from sports in real life too.  Sure, I don't mind playing a little bit of something from time to time with a few friends for the sake of getting some good exercise, but I have no interest whatsoever in professional sports and the people involved in them.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that sports games or real sports suck, their just not my cup of tea.

But even with that in mind, sports video games fucking baffle me.  They baffle me in two ways in particular and I'm going to outline them in the hopes that someone will stumble across this post and explain the fascination to me.

The first way is the very concept itself of a sports game.  I understand something like a racing game, because the idea of someone going out and buying a vehicle capable of competitive racing is just too much.  However I don't understand things like Football (soccer) games or any other sports games because their isn't really any reason you couldn't go outside with a bunch of friends and play some.  I've never once in my life met a lonely football fan.  Every single person who has an interest in football usually has a group of friends that could go to a park or field and have a game of football.  Same goes for something like Tennis, ESPECIALLY if you live in the UK where tennis balls and rackets are cheap as shit.  Just buy some basic equipment, go to a park and play some fucking tennis instead of sitting on your couch doing it.  Something like Hockey might be a little harder, but generally speaking wouldn't it be better to just go and play the real thing rather then shelling out all this money just to play a video game version of something that would be better to do for real?

The other thing about sports games is that they are just a fucking rip off.  Every goddamn year there's a new Fifa or Pro Evolution game and people go fucking nuts for it.  I understand it when Konami releases a new IIDX game every year because there's new music on it and it's an arcade game.  Doesn't matter if it's IIDX 21 or IIDX 22, it's going to cost 100 yen to play.  But are sports games for things like tennis, football, American football, hockey, basketball etc. really that different from game to game?  What do they even fucking change? The rosters to reflect the teams? Who gives a shit?  In my head, what you're paying for when you buy Fifa 15 is Fifa 14 but with a few names changed round and maybe a shitty PS4 controller or Kinect gimmick.

Like I said, I don't think they suck per se, I just don't get them.  I'm sure there must be SOMETHING to these games otherwise companies like EA wouldn't be able to milk them for so much money every year.  Still though, when I see a game getting yearly sequels I roll my eyes, but when sports fans get yearly sequels it's cause for celebration.  What gives?

Not So Different After All

So I know I said I'd be uploading They Bleed Pixels but I find myself with more time today than I thought I did, so I'll be doing a normal post instead.

With the rise of the "dudebro" this stereotype has fallen off a little bit, but it's quite common for people who enjoy sports to dislike video games (with the exception of sports games of course).  But what's funny about the rabid Football or Baseball fan is that when you really think about it, a game nerd and a sports fan aren't really all that different.

Let's just take a couple of things about nerd crap and a couple of things about sport crap and compare the two.

Any search on the internet for any kind of popular nerdy thing may lead you to images of people performing cosplay.  Just in case there are people who don't know what this is, cosplay is where you dress up as your favourite character and then take pictures or go to a convention or something, I dunno exactly I don't do it.  Now I bet if you asked your typical sports fan they'd laugh in your face and call you something unpleasant, but what's funny is that they do exactly the same thing.  Where I'm from in the UK around Manchester, people are very much into their Football.  Quite often I would see people walking around wearing football T shirts which were replicas of a players shirt down to the name and number on the back.

A replica...of what your favourite player wears....sure sounds a lot like cosplay to me.  OK granted it's not as ridiculous as wearing some of the strange shit that anime or game characters wear but the basic concept is still the same, if you are the kind of sports fan who has worn a players shirt, then you are essentially guilty of cosplaying, so laughing at those Trekkies for those Klingon outfits seems a bit hypocritical.

The other thing I want to touch on is Dungeons and Dragons.  Now this IS looked down on even by people who don't like sports and I have friends who have laughed at me in various ways for enjoying it.  But those same friends who laugh at me for playing a bit of DnD also like to spend their time playing Fantasy Football.

From what I can understand, Fantasy Football is all about putting a dream team together and then based on their performance in real Football matches various stats regarding your team will change.  Sounds a lot like DnD to me, just replace adventurers with football players and worlds of magic and mystery with a football pitch and you're essentially doing the same thing.  While DnD nerds like to pretend to be elves, football fans like to pretend to be hotshot football managers and both things are fun in their own way to the right people

Either way, I don't have a problem with sports fans, even I have a couple of sporting events that I enjoy watching.  This was just a silly post to point out to some people that being a sports fanatic and a nerd of some description really aren't all that different, although being 23 I don't really know if kids who enjoy games still get bullied by kids who enjoy sports like I did.

E3 EA Conference! Podcasty Thing!

EA finished their show, I was impressed, listen to how impressed I was