Back From Korea

At time of writing I have basically just come from my trip in South Korea and I just thought I'd say a couple of things about my trip before going to bed since I'm absolutely shattered from walking around in 35+ degree temperature for such a long time.

Usually I hate capital cities no matter what country they are in.  Tokyo, London, Paris, doesn't really matter I fucking hate them however I don't quite have the same levels of hatred for Seoul.  It's not exactly what I'd call the nicest place in the world to be but it's definitely the least "offensive" capital city I've ever been in for lack of a better word.

Anyway I did the usual touristy bullshit like visit temples and little historical villages and stuff.  The temples/palaces in South Korea are really weird because they all seem to be copy pasted.  All sort of arranged like dungeons from the original NES Zelda game with large expanses of nothing much going on.  Granted the palace I visited this time had a "secret garden" that I didn't get to see but that was extra money AND only available as a guided tour so fuck that.

The food in South Korea is really good though, especially if you're into spicy stuff.  We were taken by my friend to some kind of beef restaurant and they give you about 7000 different side dishes for you to construct your own meat-lettuce wraps with.  The following lunch time me and my wife went to a place where they served something called Galbi.  It was chicken and rice in a spicy sauce that was served on a sort of huge hotplate and they cook it for you at the table.  Fucking delicious.

As far as the gaming scene in concerned out there I didn't really see much of what was going on.  According to the friend that we stayed with the famous net cafes are of course super popular but I think everyone in the world knows about that shit since Korea is famous for Starcraft 2 and shit pop music above all else really.  Outside of that the big thing seems to be mobile gaming.  We spent an afternoon in a big shopping area and I didn't see a single game store but the subway had adverts for mobile game apps fucking EVERYWHERE.  Sort of similar to what I saw in Singapore with PC and Mobile markets being huge while console users are pretty few and far between.  I could be wrong about this of course since my total time spent in Korea is probably equal to about 3 days.

Don't know if I could recommend it for a long trip but if you're passing through or you already live in Asia and need a weekend destination then Korea is a good bet.

Swedish Lan Tax

I like living in Sweden, it's great here!  The people are friendly, the area I live is green and very scenic and the finals for Starcraft 2 at Dreamhack were broadcast on live TV so I was able to watch it in HD on a massive TV.

But then I discover something about Sweden that pisses me right the fuck off.

http://www.friatider.se/lan-party-tax-hits-swedish-gamers

This article (written in English, don't worry) is about a tax that gamers will have to pay if they want to have LAN events in Sweden.  You can go read the article, it doesn't give an exact value for how much one would have to pay, but it doesn't sound fucking cheap.

Anyway, the tax itself doesn't really effect me, I'm not the kind of person who participates or manages LAN events.  It really sucks for you guys who do but my wallet isn't going to be affected so me being angry about the cost wouldn't mean much.

That said, what does upset me quite greatly is how video gaming is viewed by the Swedish government or whoever the hell is in charge of this shit.  Basically, the people who made this decision was the Swedish Gambling Board.  They said, and it's a quote in the article, that there is no difference between video games and slot machines.

Now this really pisses me the fuck off, not because of what was said, but because what it implies about people in positions of power.  It's quite clear from that quote, that people in government positions, and not just in Sweden, don't have the first fucking clue when it comes to video games.

Every controversy over violence, sexism or anything like that, every shitty badly researched news story and shit thing to come out of a politicians mouth when it comes to gaming is because they don't have a fucking clue what's going on in this industry.  What's worse is that it's these clueless fucksticks that are allowed to pass rules on whats OK and what's not and all if you have to do is look at places like Australia and Germany to see how well that's going.

If news outlets and government bodies are going to start making reports and passing rules on stuff related to gaming, they need to hire some people who are actually clued in.  Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if that whole image of gamers being an angry, whiny bunch would fall away once stupid bullshit like this stops happening.

A Stroke of Pub Genius

I'm the kind of person who occasionally likes to go down to a pub and have a drink or two with a few buddies when I get the chance, I think that's great.  That said, I'm not the kind of person who is into things like football (English football) or anything like that, I'm not all that much of a sportsman really.

So sometimes when I go down to the pub, nothing spoils it for me more than football being played so loud on a big projector with people yelling so loud that it's impossible to have a conversation.  That said though I'm not the kind of twat who complains, I get that people like to do that but it just spoils the whole pub thing for me.

So in London, some absolute genius had the idea of setting up a gaming bar.  It's basically like a pub but with computers in it and they show stuff like Starcraft 2 instead of football.  This is great because if people are yelling over Starcraft and I can't have a conversation, at least I have something that I'm interested in to look at.

The other nice thing about this bar is that its very existence sort of dispels the myth of all people who enjoy games being anti social uber nerds which while not as widespread a view as it used to be, still exists, and that's sad.

It's not the only one too, off the top of my head I think there is one in Manchester (UK) called the Kyoto Lounge, but on account of not being in Manchester for a long long time, I've not been to it so I don't know if it's quite the same thing as the Meltdown bar, but I've heard about them showing Starcraft tournaments, so that's cool.

So if you live in London or Manchester, or if you have something similar in your area, had down and wet your whistle and support this shit.  It's a great idea and it would be a damn shame if these efforts went under.

Sometimes people make me sad

So over the last few days, I've been watching the Intel Extreme Masters tournament for Starcraft 2, a highly entertaining tournament with some good casters and a very familiar host.

I've been watching the stream of this tournament through a certain casters website, and while observing the tournament there is a chat box to the right of the stream window.  This chat box really makes me lose faith in humanity sometimes and I'm so happy there is a full screen function in order to turn it off.

Maybe it's just me, but I thought that people watching games of Starcraft 2 would like to discuss Starcraft 2, but all people seem to want to do is just argue about stupid shit all day.  The one that annoys me a little bit is the whole Starcraft 2 being better than League of Legends thing.  First, this argument is fucking stupid because the 2 games aren't even in the same genre and secondly I don't want to hear about League when I'm trying to enjoy some high level goddamn Starcraft!

I'm not going to get into this debate in any detail, but it's fucking obvious that Starcraft has more depth and requires more skill than League, harping on about it just makes you look like an ass.

But the absolute worst thing I'm seeing in this chat, is the whole USA being better than the EU thing.  Why is this even a fucking issue?  It's not like the players care, it's not like the casters care and it's not like anyone actually at the tournament gives a fuck where your from.  Even worse than that it's not even a case of "America! Fuck yeah!", the whole thing is swapped with stupid comments about how the EU is bankrupt and America is the greatest country in the world yadda yadda yadda.

I don't want to hear this garbage, I'm sure there are plenty of places where you can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of living in certain countries, but a fucking Starcraft 2 tournament chat is NOT the place to fucking do it.  Discuss the game, have some fun, but don't bring your patriotic bullshit into the fucking conversation.

Time and place people!

EDIT: As soon as the chat got filtered to subscribers only, it was filled with good healthy discussion of the tournament and the game itself!  Guess it aint all bad

Now that's some BULLSHIT! #1: Nasty Fog of War discoveries

Well this is a segment I'm going to start periodically on here called "Now that's some BULLSHIT".  What this segment is, is little rants from me about shit that happens in games or whatever that makes you just throw you arms up in the air and call bullshit.  There is lots of instances of this both in and out of gaming, so we're probably going to hit a pretty high number for these one day.

Anyway, the first piece of bullshit I'm going to needlessly get angry about today, is the nasty shit you'll find in fog of war in some strategy games, mainly turn based ones.

What I mean by a nasty fog of war discovery is when your playing something like Advance Wars or Civilisation or something like that, and you're happily uncovering the fog of war when BAM! one of the other assholes on the other team has some kind of superweapon that just wrecks your shit.  This is double bad if the game does that thing of letting the enemy get off a free turn because you blundered into it like a retard.

Now, I'm going to make this clear right now.  If you're playing something like starcraft 2, and you walk into some kind of Protoss deathball (or a big fuck off army of tough shit for all you none SC2 players), that's YOUR goddamn fault.  You didn't scout it well enough and it's your own dumbass that caused you to lose that game.

(Unrelated picture lol)

 No, what I'm talking about is like shit that happened to me today when slogging through R-Type tactics.  I'm scouting safely, making sure I can see whats ahead of me before I go throwing all my ships to the grinder, when I encounter some enemy ships.  I'm dealing with them in a manner that allows me to keep my scout ship safe, when all of a sudden a HUGE FUCKING CHARGE WAVE comes out of the fog and just destroys 2 of my units. 

Whats the point of having a scout unit if it can't effectively scout the HUGE 10 panel ship blasting me from the fog!  Now I'm not saying Fog of War is a bad thing, it adds challenge and depth and shit would be too easy without it, but that right there, is some bullshit! 

Anyone who plays strategy games has had this moment at least once, where there has been some unseeable, unexpected sack of arse waiting 3 like spaces of a map away.  So fuck fog of war sometimes, and double fuck the nasty shit that lurks in it too.  Turning missions into trail and error crap, shit off....