Apex Legends

I mentioned this game in the vlog above but unless you've been living under a rock for the last week or so then at this point you've probably heard of this hot new title that's taking the gaming world by storm.  A spinoff to title to Titanfall, it's a Battle Royale game that no one asked for but apparently everyone needed in their lives.

I think the best way to describe Apex Legends is sort of PUBG meets Overwatch.  At the start of each match you are grouped in teams of 3 and 60 of you (instead of the usual 100) are dropped onto an island with no gear and it's up to you to find loot and kill everyone else until you're the last team standing.  Of course there's a standard array of weapons to find and kill people with but to assist you in your killing each character you can pick has a different skill.  For example, one guy called Bloodhound has skills that reveal people close by to him  and as a passive he can sense "evidence" of other players if they did a thing within 60 seconds of you arriving.  Another character, Gibraltar, is a big dude who sets up big fat shields to help protect teammates when you get yourself in a pickle.  As of now there's 8 characters, 6 playable from the get go and 2 of which are locked and you have to "buy" with either in game or real currency.

When looting not only are you looking for guns, ammo and protective gear but you're also looking for gun attachments.  The guns themselves, for the most part, seem neither here nor there and you're allowed to freely pick and choose whatever weapons you like based on your personal play style.  What a gunfight really seems to come down to is what attachments you have for that gun.  As you're looting you'll find barrels, stocks, sights, mags etc that will help you kill your fellow man and it's these items that make ALL the difference.  In one game I had a fully kitted out rifle which turned my SMG into death laser but the next game I had the same gun with no attachments and could barely hit shit as the recoil sent my view flying about 180 degrees with every bullet.  I quite like this approach since it allows you to play with whatever you want while in something like Fortnite I was always just looking for rare versions of very specific weapons every game.

The absolute best thing about this game however is the team communication.  You can play with no mics and still be able to communicate really clearly thanks to an absolute genius pinging system.  Of course, mics are better overall but if you get paired with some really annoying morons you can give yourself some peace and quiet and still be able to point out an enemy or a useful bit of loot for them.  The downside of the coms in this game however is that if you DO have a mic, it's IMPOSSIBLE to mut it (at time of writing).  This is unfortunate for someone like me who lives in a Japanese apartment because if my wife wants to listen to music while I'm playing then I risk getting mad hate as Celine Dion blares down my playstation mic.  I could just unplug it but I shouldn't have to, just put a fucking mute button in goddamnit. 

Of course, since it's a free game there are microtransactions but they aren't too intrusive.  You can pay for currency or you can get an in game currency by leveling up and this will allow you to purchase characters or cosmetics for your character.  Also when levelling up you get a pack that contains items like gun skins or character related voice quips and other things and the drop rates on these packs seem pretty good.  I'm only level 13 and already have 2 epic tier skins and there is A LOT of skins despite the fact the game just launched so if you like Overwatch style lootboxes then this game has a lot to offer you.

Anyway, the game is free and it's surfing a wave of popularity right now.  Will it kill Fortnite? Probably not but it's gearing up to be a decent contender for a quality alternative. No longer will you have to suffer the buggy, broken mess that is PUBG or the skid stain that is that Call of Duty thing.  Worth trying once at the very least 

Fortnite Season 4 and leveling frustrations

If you've been watching the stream you might now that I've jumped on the Fortnite wagon pretty hard.  How could I not when for a while almost every advert I saw was "CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME FREE GAME!"  I wanted to try a battle royale game but PUBG was £15 and looked shit, Fortnite at the very least had some personality.

So it dragged me in really hard with its fast paced game play that was enjoy to enjoy in short bursts.  It also helps that I can just camp in solos while I do housework or work on other things and the occasional fiddle to get inside the zone helps break the monotony. I really enjoyed the the event with the meteor and the map change that came with it too, the game is telling a sort of loose story without words that you have to figure out by yourself by observing small changes to the map.  It's a cool way of doing it that gets a community discussing ideas about what might come next.  

I enjoyed it SO much I ended up dropping 1000 yen on a premium battle pass, which is very out of character for me since I've not payed for a cosmetic since about 2010 but I just couldn't help myself.  The battle pass and the challenges that come with it are a nice mixup to play and without them I'd probably play at lot less.  It's crazy how a simple objective like "get a kill with a trap" can make you want to play over and over again until you get it.  

The big pot of gold at the end of the battle pass is the Omega skin and the "omega challenges" that came with it.  I was hyped for this, I was expecting some really hard shit that would really test my skills but when I unlocked it all it asked me for was to level to 80.  That's not a challenge, that's just demanding my time, and a huge disappointment for all the work it took to reach tier 100 on the pass.  

Still, the good thing about the premium pass is that it spits out enough currency to get the next one for free.  Now that I know what's coming I know that AFKing for exp is something I need to do more of if I want to 100% everything in season 5 but I don't think I'll ever quite forgive Fortnite for this crushing letdown 

Torn About Resident Evil 2 Remake

So a remake of Resident Evil 2 got announced and when I first heard the news I was absolutely fucking stoked.  Resident Evil 2 is quite possibly my favorite Resident Evil game and the idea of having a version of it that's all in shiny next-gen-o-vision is a truly exciting idea.  However upon seeing some of the game play footage for it, I'm a little torn.  First let me start by showing you a video of the demo that someone has done that doesn't have any commentary on it so you can just see and process for yourself.

Like I said, on one hand I'm really excited because at the end of the day it's fuckin' Resident Evil 2.  It's the best game in the series made to look all pretty and have modern game play and whatnot but that's also half the problem.

I didn't WANT this.  When I first saw someone on my social media post about it I had visions of REMake but it's Resident Evil 2 instead of 1.  That's what I really wanted, just a nice shiny remake of the 2nd game for modern systems.  REMake had some extra content as well in the form of Lisa Trevor and all that stuff so maybe this dream RE2 remake I had in my head would have had some of that too.  Hell, I bet there's a lot of stuff from RE1.5 that could be implemented as bonus modes or as extra content to the main story.

But what we got was the RE6 looking thing that's stolen RE7s interface with all new shit going on.  Of course that isn't inherently a bad thing but I'm having trouble getting over the shock of it not being REMake 2.  I think that one things that long standing fans of survival horror have wanted for a long time is for games to go BACK to that old style because it helps to serve the horror.  I hate the fact that all modern "horror" games have just turned into 3rd person action games with jump scares and gore and that seems to be the direction that Resident Evil 2 Remaster is taking.

Still, I'm not going to completely shit on it just yet since a short game play video and a trailer aren't really enough to form a complete opinion on.  I've yet to see anything of Claire's campaign and I'm interested to see what they do with the plot since I've heard that they've done away with the whole A/B thing that the first one had.  Let's hope they do it justice.

Fortnite

Every so often a game will come along that completely dominates the landscape for a while and Fortnite is one of those games.  Created by Epic Games and originally showcased WAY back in 2011, Fortnite is the current big-hitter in the now popular Battle Royale genre and it's basically impossible to have at least not heard of it given all the publicity it's been getting.

Fortnite is actually some kind of zombie survival game that I've ever played.  I think it involves a team of people scavenging and building a fort in order to survive against waves of zombies that get progressively harder.  I think it has characters that have unique abilities and you're supposed to work together to save the world, or at least that's what it says in the menu.

However following the popularity of Player Unknowns Battlegrounds they added a battle royale mode where 100 players skydive into an island to kill each other until there is only one player remaining.  You start the game with no gear save for a pick axe that you can use to gather materials and from there it's up to you to find guns and supplies in order to kill everyone else.  As you play there's a storm that encroaches on the play area every couple of minutes forcing the survivors to get closer and closer to each other as time goes on.

Games of Fortnite are very quick too despite how many people are involved in each match.  Landing in popular areas where all the sick loot is will get you murdered quickly and if you are lucky enough to survive then the deadly storm which shrinks on you every 2 minutes or so will ensure that you're in someones face sooner rather than later.  The quick nature of the game prevents it from being overly frustrating on a loss since you can pretty much instantly get into another game with very small amounts of downtime which means you can enjoy it in quick bursts or for extended periods depending on your mood and schedule which is rather nice.

The big gimmick that sets it apart from PUBG though is the building.  You can an interesting situation where when the circle starts to get really small players are forced to sort of just build upwards since a more horizontal approach to combat is out of the question.  I'm bad it at at time of writing but seeing the speed and skill with which players build these forts at each other to try and get the upper hand is absolutely mesmerizing and it gives quite an interesting spin on the late game combat.

It's also weirdly addicting, invoking that "just one more game" mentality that I've personally not experienced from a title since I used to play League of Legends back with my university buddies.  Not only that but there's a certain thrill that comes from being within the last 5-10 survivors on the map and then getting into a fire fight which could either mean victory or a painful reset to the lobby menu.

The game also has a ton of style with it's cartoony graphics and a "battle pass" feature, bought for about £10, which allows the player to unlock a metric fuckton of cosmetics.  I never usually drop money on a free game for something as inconsequential as cosmetic items but even I couldn't resist the allure of Fortnites battle pass.

If you're on the fence about it, I'd say give it a go.  It's free, it's fast and it's fun and even if it doesn't hook you like it completely hooked me you'll still have a good time with it.

Since When Was Monster Hunter so Huge?

Monster Hunter World has come out recently and everyone around me is raving about it.  I'm not disagreeing with the raving either, Monster Hunter World looks absolutely fan-fucking-tastic, and while I've not bought it myself because it's like 8000 yen (when new games are typically around 6000) I can't wait to get my hands on it soon.

While it's nice to see a game series I enjoy get so much positive press, it's popularity is somewhat confusing to me though.  In Japan I know that Monster Hunter has always been big, you sort of just bump into it everywhere.  It might be a poster advertising Frontier in an internet cafe or some kind of promotional thing like a Monster Hunter themed design on a drink or something, it's the kind of thing that just pops up in every day life fairly often.  Now I can't speak for America but in the UK it was a different story completely, I only knew 2 people who also played Monster Hunter and apparently there was some little shop in London where hunters could go meet up to hunt stuff on Freedom Unite.

They were games that had good reviews but never much of a following.  I started to get into the series around the time of Freedom Unite and I remember having a grand old time with it.  However, back then I remember getting an armor set and posting a picture of it on Facebook to show some friends and a bunch of people chimed in with comments like "why are you such a sad fuck?" or "this game is for losers" etc.  It wasn't even a high level set, it was a shit early game thing that required no effort too, not that it really matters I guess.

I stuck with the series up to Monster Hunter Portable 3rd on the PSP (so 2008-2010 roughly) and in that time only met 1 other guy who was at all interested.  After that the series moved to 3DS which was all region locked and shit and I was living in Japan so I was sort of locked out of playing it unless I wanted to import or drop money on a Japanese 3DS but even with each DS release I didn't see anyone talking about it.

Now it's 2018, World gets released and suddenly everyone is all "MONSTER HUNTER OMG LOOKS SO GOOD!".  Like, where did this excitement come from?  I spent so much time looking for people with even a passing interest to no avail and now suddenly everyone's a fan? What the fuck happened?  It feels to me that some people are bandwagoning a bit here.  They actually don't know jack shit about the series past World but because of all the praise and publicity suddenly they love it now.

Still, I know I might be coming across as all bitter and sort of gatekeepy like "who are these filthy casuals playing MY game" but that's not the case.  It's confusing but it does make me happy to see a series I like getting so much praise and hype around it.  It all means that when I DO go and buy it I'll have plenty of people it with, finally.

Happy Hunting to newcomers and veterans alike!

Resident Evil 7

A fair while ago I finished Resident Evil 7 on my PS4 and because I've been so rushed the last month I never actually got around to saying anything about it on here. 

Resident Evil 7 isn't like anything that came before it.  A long while ago there were articles going around the internet that Shinji Mikami wanted to take the series back to its roots.  I think secretly horror fans were hoping that this meant we were going to get a horror game in the classic style but it would look all shiny on the new systems.  Well we didn't get that but what we did get was bloody good.

The game starts out with the main character getting a message from his wife who he thought was dead to come and save her.  Upon arrival he manages to find her but then starts getting attacked by the absolute batshit insane family that live in the house and from there all sorts of insanity goes down.  I don't want to go into the story too much in this piece because its really the best thing if you experience it without knowing anything.

The whole game is done in a first person perspective which at first sounds really lame but actually works quite well.  It was obviously done in order to make the VR thing worth it but it doesn't detract from the overall experience if you don't have it.  If anything Resident Evil is the first game that has made me think that I want to buy a VR set at all which is a pretty good indicator of just how the general atmosphere was done in this game.

What makes Resident Evil 7 so enjoyable is that all the ingredients of classic survival horror are in the game but with the first person perspective it's like they've just put a new twist on it.  Usually these kind of first person horror games involve simply hiding from the baddies but in this one we have all sorts of weapons and items that we have to manage.  The combat, which I'll talk about in just a second is actually fun and it feels like the character is decently capable of dealing with whatever is being thrown at him.

The most important question that most people will be asking though is "is it scary?" and the answer is somewhat.  If you're not the kind of person that is super used to horror like I am then there's probably going to be a great deal of moments that will have you shitting yourself.  However if you're a bit hardened on the genre then while it probably wont scare you as much it's still sort of stressful.  The atmosphere never lets up and while it's predictable in certain places it just adds to that feeling of stress because usually it'll be a situation where it's the only way to progress.  There have been so many shitty horror games in recent memory that maybe I'm being nice to it but it was definitely a nice feeling to be made a little uneasy by some sections.

Of course, the game isn't perfect and while the problems don't detract from the experience so much it's hard to just ignore these glaring faults.  First the movement just feels a bit weird overall.  Of course, you adapt to the games weird movement but there are plenty of times that I took a hit from and enemy or boss and got a little frustrated because if the character just walked or ran like a normal human being instead of like one of those crazy huge movie cameras on legs then avoiding damage would be a bit easier.  Second the AI on regular enemies is laughably bad and once you figure out how to bait out certain attacks then each encounter becomes a trivial inconvenience.  This is a shame because the first time you fight the regular enemies it's genuinely intimidating but then you realize that they all behave like morons and they lose their impact.

The enemy variety is also shockingly bad.  The encounters with the family are extremely fun and varied but the regular characters that stalk the corridors are lacking to say the least.  Just think, Resident Evil 1 had zombies, spiders, snakes, hunters, crows, dogs and the remake brought in the famous crimson heads.  Resident Evil 7 on the other hand has black thing with teeth, fat black thing with teeth and spidery black thing and that's IT.  Finally without spoiling anything the final section of the game is just pathetically easy because the game gives you so much of a certain weapon that the enemies blocking your path have no chance of stopping you because not only is the weapon so powerful but the enemies make 0 effort to avoid it.

Still, generally speaking Resident Evil 7 is a really good game so if you need a good horror fix then play this.  At time of writing I'm not really aware of anything even remotely entertaining in the genre coming out aside from We Happy Few so while Resident Evil 7 is MAYBE a little on the short side you'll be happy you decided to play it by the end.

Gaming and Social Media

The fact that gaming and social media have sort of come together in recent years is such a strange phenomena to me.  Back in my younger years if I shared gaming related things on my Facebook wall then I would be ridiculed for being a loser but now I have game systems that let me, at the push of a button, upload screenshots, videos or even put out links to my Stream direct to Facebook and other platforms.

Allow me to share a little story about my first experiences putting gaming content on social media platforms.  A long while ago I used to play a lot of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite on my PSP, it was a grand old time.  Just when I was starting out, I managed to grind enough of a certain creature in order to get my first full, self crafted armor set so I was pretty excited.  I thought I'd share this excitement with some of my so called "friends" on Facebook so I snapped a picture, uploaded it and put a caption on it like "woo! first proper armor!".  The comments that I got back were things like "holy shit you're such a loser" or my personal favorite "there's casual, hardcore and sad.  Guess which one you are".  THEN fast forward to 2016 where I can smash a button and upload a screenshot from Bloodborne where I just killed a boss or something and suddenly the comments are things like "well done that game is hard" or "omg I wanna play that game so bad".

This is just one example of that happening but it happened many times more and with other titles.  If you were to go through my old photo albums and look at the screen shots for Left4Dead, Guild Wars or Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine then you'll see a lot of abuse but viewing similar content on newer titles or even posts for this blog clearly shows that gaming content has become a lot more "acceptable" on social media.

Gaming platforms have always had their social elements to them with things like Steam offering ways to share pictures or content with other players but with that it's always self contained within it's own community of gamers.  Facebook is where a lot of the filthy non-players reside, the kind of people who don't understand games and think they are either for kids or for lonely, fat basement dwellers with nothing better to do with their lives so the fact that people now are willing to more openly share their gaming experiences is a bit of a shock, but a good kind of shock.

This improving of the relationship of social media and video games is something we all frowned upon back during the launch of the next gen systems.  You had people on stages at press conferences harping on and on and on about social media this and Twitter that and we just turned up our noses and said "where are the games?".  However we now live in an age where there's a large number of people working within gaming media who are trying to smear and shame it.  Lot's of articles about gamers and games being sexist or violent.  It's stuff that happened before but now it's coming from within.  Except what these social media features allow us to do is show the people directly, the people who don't know any better and would buy into this shit otherwise, that this just isn't the case.  We have been given the tools to fight back against the clickbait, sensationalist bullshit that would seek to damage gaming for a fast profit rather than help us evolve the medium.

Times have changed drastically and I'm actually rather thankful for it.

DoAX3 and Play Asia

So once again Japan make a game thats designed for fans of attractive anime girls and once again easily offended assholes in the west have taken to twitter, tumblr and gaming "news" sites to complain about it.  We all know that "misogyny" is the new video game boogie man du jour only this time Koei Tecmo has decided it can't be arsed with this shit and has decided not to make its upcoming bikini girl oogle fest available in the west.

First of all, let's just address the idea of this game being "sexist" because if you dig around the internet just a little bit there are articles out there claiming so.  To accuse someone of being sexist or being a misogynist is to accuse someone of hating/having less respect for women based solely on their gender.  So you're telling me, that because people enjoy watching attractive women in cute bikinis frolic around on a beach that they are sexist?  You're telling me that there are people who write for certain gaming websites that seriously believe that the staff of Team Ninja made this game just because they have a gigantic hate boner for women and want to portray them solely as objects? 

What the fuck planet are you from where that could at all be true?  Men enjoying seeing attractive women do shit is just human fucking nature, it's hard wired into our goddamn heads to enjoy that shit as men (unless you don't swing that way, but typically).  The idea that I should feel bad or ashamed because I enjoy seeing attractive women wearing not much dance around and play sports is insane and anyone putting that idea forward needs a fucking slap.  Anyway, aren't all these people writing this shit and complaining supposed to be all about tolerance and equality and shit?  So I have to be 100% accepting of homosexuality or transgender people but when I want to enjoy my own sexuality I should feel ashamed?  Get the fuck out!  If you want to have  relations with someone of the same sex or change your gender, power to you, do what ever the fuck you want but don't come telling me that I'm a terrible human being for enjoying titties because if the shoe was on the other foot you'd be labeling me an "oppressor" and sending me death threats, no wonder Koei Tecmo can't be arsed with this shit.

Anyway, now that my rant is done what the fuck does Play Asia have to do with all this?  Well they put out some tweets about how Koei Tecmo aren't releasing the game for the west but their copies of the game that you can import will come with English modes on them.  This is being met with mixed reactions from certain types of people and while all this debating is all well and good I can't help but feel that people are getting played a little bit here.

Is sexism REALLY the reason that they aren't releasing the game?  I mean look at games like Hatred and Hunnie Pop, games that sold fairly well purely on the basis of sticking it to the perpetually offended keyboard warriors of twitter and big gaming news sites.  Claiming that there isn't a market for titties and ultra violence in the west is just plain wrong, people love that shit and will love it even more if you actually make a good game with it.

Consider this, Dead or Alive Xtreme hasn't done too well overseas and I'm not sure the figures but I don't think it did too hot in Japan either.  The people who make and publish these games aren't idiots, they know their audience well and I get the feeling that this whole Play Asia sticking it to the "SJWs" as they put it is all a big fat marketing ploy to tap into that demographic of people who think that buying a game with bikini girls in it is going to piss people off.  Sure, Koei Tecmo SAID it was because of sexism but I'm more willing to bet it was due to shit sales figures and tapping into the big game controversy of the now is their bid to push a few more copies of the game.

If it really was sexism then that's sad that there are publishers who feel they have to withhold games because of a vocal minority of know-nothing twats working for sites like Kotaku and Polygon.  If it wasn't sexism and this is all a ploy to push copies then I'm surprised more people aren't catching onto it because it seems really obvious. 

None of this really affects me though, I live in Japan where I can get those next gen titties in all their glory!  Although being brutally honest X3 is on the very very bottom of my buying priority list once I get round to buying a fucking PS4.

Destiny looks a bit mediocre

Before anyone starts raging in a comment or sending me emails I've not played Destiny so I don't think it's a shit a game, I just think it LOOKS a bit shitty.  I'm going to have to tell my friends why I'm not really all that interested in Destiny so I'm making this post as a way of just linking them something fast instead of having to type out the same thing over and over again to different people.

Now in all fairness, I've not been following the production of Destiny so I have seen very little.  Before making this post I checked out the launch trailer and it didn't really change my impressions of the game.  I also checked out the Wikipedia entry but that didn't really sway me either.

So as far as I understand it, in Destiny you pick a race and a class (of which there are only like 3 or so, I think) and then you go on some kind of adventure to protect Earths last city or something.  The one thing that stuck out in my mind when I saw a few snippits of information from the E3 coverage was that it reminded me of Borderlands. 

This is not a good thing because it's basically the entire reason that I have 0 interest in the game.  Borderlands is bloody awful with its terrible writing, metric fucktons of useless weaponry, shitty open world game play and repetitive questing and I can't shake the feeling that Destiny will be just that but made to look like Halo.

That doesn't mean that I think Destiny is a bad game, because Bungie are a talented group of people, they can probably take a concept like Borderlands and un-shit it but that doesn't make me want to jump on the hype train and buy a PS4 just to play it.  I think in a sense that Destiny is very lucky to be released at this time because right now I can't think of any other decent game for the PS4 or Xbone so I guess people are excited just to have SOMETHING to play on their next gen paperweights.

I'm totally open to the idea of giving Destiny a go, I just don't want to pay for it.  You never know, I might play Destiny on my buddies PS4 and be completely blown away by it.  Then again I might play it, be completely right about it being crap and maybe come back here to say even nastier things, only time will tell.

I don't take much stock in things such as Metacritic but I gave it just a quick glance to get a general opinion and the user score was clocking in at 6.3.  This means that people have played it and have found it to be a little disappointing I guess and these people are way more versed with it than I am.

Right now I'm being nice without expecting anything but I have a feeling I'm going to be rather upset in the end.

Child of Light Mini Review

A couple of weeks ago I beat Child of Light so I'm going to do that thing I always do a write a little bit about it.  I made a post previously talking about how the combat was basically a poor mans Grandia and used it as a basis for the idea that games are getting dumber and dumber but I actually quite enjoyed Child of Light.

The game follows Princess Aurora who kinda, maybe but didn't really die and was sent to the land of Leumeria.  There she is thrust into an adventure to rid the world of a dark queen by gathering the sun, the moon and the stars and then shoving a sword into her big ugly face.

You spend the whole game exploring 2D environments and fighting monsters for EXP.  Once you reach the end of an area you will fight a boss and once that's all said and done you get some story.  The exploration is fun since Aurora can fly freely around the map and there is quite a lot to find in each area.  Some areas even have little sub areas that involve traps that could potentially kill you or a special enemy that will drop a nice prize if you manage to kill it.

The combat, while simplistic, is fast and never I never really got bored with it.  You level up at a stupidly fast rate but the monsters remain challenging as long as you keep moving forward.  You could hang back and grind a little but I feel that if you did that then the fun behind the challenge of combat would be diminished somewhat.  Just as a note, I played the game on hard so I can't speak for the lower difficulty levels, but for a game like this playing on anything less than hard is just a bit embarrassing, quite frankly.

I was told going in that the story, while not bad, is annoying because almost all the dialogue is delivered in rhyme.  It would be really annoying if it was voiced but only a small number of key scenes have any voice work and the rest of the story is delivered in text, so I don't really know what people are moaning about.  The story is pretty basic but it's driven by some pretty good characters with well fleshed out personalities.  You get to know your squad pretty well over the course of the game and since each one has a unique function in combat then it's rare for any one character to get truly sidelined and forgotten.

I would recommend Child of Light to fans of the RPG genre.  It's a lighthearted little adventure with some nice characters, interesting art direction and fun game play.  While some of it's features feel underdeveloped such as the skill tree and Oculi stat boost stuff, it's not intrusive enough to ruin the whole experience.  It's also just the right length for this kind of thing wrapping everything up before things start to get stale.

Go give it a go. 

Microsoft Hitting An All Time Low

So, the story that's been flying around the internet recently, is that Microsoft have been paying off popular YouTubers to say very nice things about the Xbox One in their videos.  As far as I understand how it works, you have to be partnered with Machinima (one of the biggest gaming channels on YouTube), you have to have at least 30 seconds of game and you can't say anything bad about the game or the system, it all has to be smiles and happiness.

Now this isn't uncommon in advertising for companies to use big name people to push their products.  For example I remember those Gillette shaving adverts where they were using famous sports people to tell us what a good shave they were having, and no one said anything then.  But there is a difference between that and what Microsoft are doing.

When those adverts appear on TV, you know and are told that these people have been paid by the company to do endorsements for their products so you take what they say with a pinch of salt.  But YouTubers on the other hand are a different story, they aren't big name celebs, they are just people and the reason we watch those videos is because we want another persons honest opinion.

If you watch a video of someone taking part in this deal (there's a tag you can search for), they don't tell you that they are being paid to endorse the Xbox One, they just talk about it like it's a great piece of kit and pass it off as their own honest opinion, which I can bet for at least a certain percentage of those videos, it's total crap.  If you are one of those people who said nice things about the XBone JUST for the money, then I hope all your game systems break at the same time because you don't really have any place critiquing games like that when you have absolutely no integrity.

People wouldn't even be as upset about it if they just came out and said "yeah, we are paying people to say nice things" because at least then we know we would have to think very hard before we took anything in any Xbox One video seriously.  The fact that they are so underhanded about it is what makes the whole thing really pathetic.

But then this makes me think 2 things.  The first being that if they are willing to pay YouTubers to say nice things about the Xbone, how much are they paying big news sites for good write ups of games?  When things like Bioshock Infinite get 10/10s I've always said that it's because someone being paid for that score rather than the game being any good because that game is about as stupid as it gets.

The other thing is, how do we know that Microsoft aren't paying off people to say nasty things about the PS4?  Now I'm going to be rather wary of any Machinima partners slagging off Sony because maybe they got paid to say that shit as well.

Microsoft is fucking pathetic, instead of paying people off to say nice things about their system, why don't they just use that money to make some GOOD FUCKING GAMES....idiots.

More Xbox One Disappointment

Remember a while back I said next gen didn't work properly and it was a big disappointment?  Well yeah, time for more of that!

Although this time it's not really about things that work, we're going to be talking DRM again.  So today I came across an article (which I will link at the bottom) which describes an occurrence that happened during a Killer Instinct tournament.  Basically, during the matches, the Xbox One check in DRM kicked in and just ended the match then and there to make sure that they owned the game that they were playing.  It didn't warn anyone that this was going to take place, it just booted them right out of the game with no regard for what they were doing.

I thought that Microsoft had done away with the check in DRM thing, but it turns out I was wrong.  The way I now understand it is, if you have a disc and it is inserted into the Xbox, then this doesn't happen.  However if you are playing a game that does not have a disc (So anything off the marketplace then), then the Xbox will just boot you out of the game so you can do the little check-in procedure.

If you go click the link at the bottom of this thing and check out the YouTube video in the article, it LOOKS like they were between matches or something, I'm not sure I've not played the new KI, so it looks more inconvenient than anything else, but this might seriously have an impact on Killer Instinct making an appearance at something like EVO, because I'm sure both tournament organisers and players won't be happy if the Xbox decides that it wants to do it's little DRM check during a battle.  I'm sure someone would be pissed if they were winning a match that's stopped due to DRM, then they lose their mojo and get trounced in the re-match; that shit ain't fair.

But even if your not into fighting games or the competitive gaming scene, it's STILL a problem.  Imagine if a little way down the line something like an RPG comes out on the marketplace.  Imagine if this RPG doesn't have checkpoints or something bullshit like that, it just has good old fashioned save spots.  Then imagine if you're doing a dungeon, a long dungeon, maybe the final one, you're near the end and you're having a hard time making it through but just before you can go fight the final boss BAM! DRM check kicks in an you lose all that progress for fucking nothing.  I wouldn't be too happy about that if it was me.

This is even going to have an impact on people who enjoy speed running because during a good run you don't want to have all that effort killed because of something you can't control.  If there are multi platform digital distribution games that look good for a speed runner, they will more than likely go buy it on a system that doesn't threaten to kick you out if you don't confirm you own it every 24 hours or whatever it is.

So yeah, more next generation disappointment.  Microsoft need to sort their shit out, I thought this DRM check in stuff was done with, but now it's here just ruining fighting game tournaments and being a bit of a bastard.

Here's the link to the original article I heard this on.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xbox-One-24-Hour-Check-DRM-Returns-During-Killer-Instinct-Tournament-61114.html

Next Gen is Really Grinding My Gears

OK, this is fucking stupid. 

Not too long ago we saw the release of the PS4 and Xbox One, something that should be an exciting time with all these new games and fancy hardware to play it on.  But no, it's not an exciting time, it's a time filled with loud obnoxious noises, sighing and eye rolling.  Let me show you what I mean.

That's a montage of the Xbox One making horrible grinding noises when you put the disc in, and there is a PS4 version as well.  Not to mention that since the release of these systems, a great deal of my twitter feed is "oh, my PS4 broke" or people asking questions like "just how many people have faulty systems?" and then getting a ton of replies.

This is fucking unacceptable!  When I bought my fat PS3 when MGS4 came out, I had absolutely no issues, and until it got stolen there were no problems.  Same with my slim PS3, which is preowned as well, zero problems there.  I had no problems when I was gifted my first Mega Drive, no problems when the N64 came out, nothing for the Dreamcast and then in 2013 suddenly the cutting edge systems have stupid high failure rates.

Microsoft and Sony...why fucking bother?  I don't want to have to worry about my potential purchase of a PS4 or Xbox One maybe failing because YOU can't fucking quality control.  One or two faulty systems is just tough luck, that shit happens, but THIS much faulty hardware being sold to people is a fucking joke and you should be ashamed.

Just go look at twitter for a while or do some searching on YouTube and there are tons of people with videos or tweets about how their shit isn't working as intended or just flat out not working at all.  Hell, the systems are less than a month old and already the term "Blue Light of Death" has been made up for the PS4.

So until this shit gets fixed, fuck next gen.  Right now there aren't any games I even want to play and even if they were I wouldn't want to spend the money because my system probably won't work.  So yeah, get fucked Sony and Microsoft, how about making something that works before taking peoples money?  Bunch of arseholes need to go drown in a lake of dicks.

Next Gen Attitudes Are Worrying

We are really close now to the launch dates for the next gen systems and it's an exciting time to be a fan of video games as we get to try out all the cool new hardware coming out.

Microsoft and their Xbox One are basically writing the rulebook on how not to launch a console, PS4 is quietly doing its thing and impressing people but isn't completely devoid of it's own bullshit and the WiiU, the one who got out the gate early, is just chugging away in the background producing a decent game once every couple of months.

So what do I mean when I say that the attitudes are worrying?  Well, think about it, what do you buy a games console for?  Playing video games on, right?  So what's everyone talking about when the topic of next gen comes up? Anything but fucking video games.

Sure, there is plenty of talk of hardware, resolutions, capabilities, if it needs online or not, the ability to play used games etc. etc. but where is any of the talk of the actual games?  Just thinking about the lineups for the Xbox One and PS4, there isn't anything that has me jumping up and down thinking I just HAVE to buy the new systems at launch to play that one really good game.

I remember back when the Dreamcast came out, people were pretty impressed with how the thing looked compared to stuff like the PS1 but the FOCUS was the fucking games.  I remember getting seeing footage for things like Power Stone and Jet Set Radio and thinking that I had to have a Dreamcast just to play those damn games.

That game focus seems to have been lost a little bit and with it so has the fun in a new console launch.  Back then, it didn't matter what system you were buying because no matter what you bought you were going to have fun with it.  Even the fan boys were happy if their buddies got the other thing, because then they had a chance to play it and despite many an argument being had over which one was "better" at the end of the day it didn't matter because you were still having fun.

That's gone now, and it's been replaced with technological pissing contests between the major companies and which system gets bought basically boils down to which one is fucking over the consumer the least.  Add a bunch of elitist PC pricks in the background screaming about how awesome their stuff is and all it makes for is a very tiring and unexciting start to the next gen.

There isn't a single game for the next gen systems that I have seen thus far that has made me excited, and that's sad.  If this next gen release period has proved anything to me, it's that gaming isn't about fun anymore, it's about which group of fan boys has the best machine.

I'm sure once the dust settles and some decent games get released, both systems will end up being pretty good in the end.  Hell, I'm sure even the WiiU will end up with a decent library a few more years down the line.  But the point is, that all this outcry at business policy and constant crying over things like screen resolution and frames per second has just pissed me off and now I don't give a flying rats ass about "next gen" anymore.

I'll be keeping an eye out for that one game that eventually makes me excited enough to drop money on a system, but until then, I'll be just sat here biding my time until Dark Souls 2.

Stop Cheating!!!

OK, I don't know the ins and outs of this story but the sentiment of this post remains the same.

So according to the website Cinema Blend, Microsoft have been gaming the numbers in an online twitter poll in order to make the Xbox One seem more popular that it actual is in America.  You can read the article right here.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xbox-One-Caught-Cheating-Twitter-Poll-Gains-60-Votes-With-Bots-58927.html

You can see in that article there is a bunch of dummy accounts spamming votes for the Xbox One to make it look more popular than it really is.  Now it's not really a big deal, it's just a an online poll, but that's exactly the point.  Instead of focusing on fixing the massive fuckup that is the Xbox One, they are spending resources on having people set up a bunch of bots to spam hash tags on twitter.  If they spent more time on actually making a good system and less time trying to damage control their shitty piece of hardware then the votes would come naturally anyway.

Xbox isn't the only one potentially doing shit like this though.  There is a number of rumours flying around the internet that Riot Games are padding out their Twitch TV viewer numbers with bots sitting around various channels just so that the numbers look higher than that of their competitors.

Rather than trying to cheat people and game numbers, why not just make a quality product that people would enjoy?  Hell, in the case of Riot games they don't NEED to game numbers on twitch because there are already shit tons of people who love the game, who cares if there are more people viewing on twitch compared to DotA or whatever?

Just stop it! Twitch viewer counts don't matter! Twitch polls don't matter! Stop it and focus on making things good!

Dying Light

There are so many zombie games now that the whole concept has become sort of meaningless but somehow the guys over at Techland have managed to get me excited for their upcoming zombie game Dying Light.

At first I sort of rolled my eyes and thought "oh great, another zombie game" and the fact that it was made by the same guys who gave us Dead Island didn't really make me any more excited but then I found a 12 minute game play video.

Granted it's still a work in progress but right now it's actually looking pretty promising.  No silly levelling systems or some other feature to make zombie killing easier.  Right now it just looks like the player is given a bunch of objectives and they have to survive while they fulfil those objectives, simple and fun.  There seems to be some extra side missions to which will have some kind of effect on the story but it doesn't look like you'll be running around doing "quests" for people.  Also the free running mechanic looks like it'll make traversing the areas of the game quite fun and give you quite a few options on how to deal with an upcoming horde.

The thing I quite like about the game play trailer is that during the day it's sort of a bog standard first person zombie game, but things get interesting once night falls because the zombies stop being zombies and they become strange creatures that can perform all sorts of acrobatic feats to come and chew your brains out.

Still, with it being a zombie game I'm not jumping out of my seat in excitement but I'm most definitely looking forward to more news to see how this one turns out.  I'm down for some free running, zombie killing action so sign me up and give me a pair of running shoes and a shotgun.

The Xbox One (Eighty)

We finally have our first blog post that comes with a theme song

Well, maybe only the chorus.

ANYWAY!  News is that Microsoft have pulled the biggest backpedalling 180 degree turn and basically removed their DRM plans from the Xbox One.

So from what I can figure out by looking at various news sites, they have got rid of the 24 hour internet connection things and the limitations on game sharing and used games.

What they have said about the 24 hour connecting thing is that when you first set the console up, you will have to do a online set up thing and after that you can play it on or offline as much as you like.  The first time set up thing still sounds like a pain in the arse for me because those things never go smoothly, but it'll probably be fine for most people.

They have also said that games will work the same way that they do today.  There won't be any of this install the game to the system and then never need a disc again bullshit.  You throw the disc in the tray and play the goddamn game.  When you are done playing the goddamn game, you can trade it in or lend it to a friend or do whatever the fuck you want with it, and that's great.  Also games that you download will be playable offline but you will not be able to share them, but we weren't able to do that with the 360 so it's not so bad.

Finally they got rid of that stupid fucking region lock thing.  Originally they were planning to only allow the console to work in something like 21 countries, but now that they got rid of that 24 hour connecting thing they don't have to do that, so now the Xbox One will work wherever the fuck you are.  However I don't think it means that imported games will work, I think region locking on games is still the same.

So well done game fans, you did a good thing!  All the rage that came from E3 caused Microsoft to take a step back and realise that they can't just abuse consumers like this.  Maybe this outcry will also send a message to publishers that we won't stand for bullshit season pass stuff too!

Of course, the Xbox One is far from perfect and there are still plenty of questions to be answered, but at least this news is a step in the right direction.  Within the space of a couple of news articles I think Microsoft got a lot of people to at least consider buying the thing now.

A Solution to Used Games

This isn't my solution, but I love what was said.

So everyone is flipping their shit over Xbox One not supporting used games and needing to phone home every 24 hours and other shit like that.  At the same time Cliff Bleszinski, the games industries uber twat, went on twitter and said that it's basically impossible for used games to exist with development costs being so high.

But then I went and found an article on Polygon.  This was an interview with Reggie from Nintendo and he basically said that if developers are worried about used game sales, then they should make better games.

I fucking love that Reggie stood up and said that.  I'm no Ninendo fanboy but Reggie absolutely hit the nail on the head here.  The reason games are getting traded in so often and people are buying shit used is because the "AAA" games that get pumped out nowadays are all fucking garbage.  Six hour cover based corridor shooters with tacked on multiplayer is not something your average person wants to keep in their collection for any longer than they have to.

There are probably shit tons of used Nintedo games flying around.  In fact, there were so many Wii games being traded in at my local game stores that about 90% of my Wii games were used.  But what's nice to see is that Nintendo is saying that if there is a problem with used games, it's because they are producing shit games, rather than just blaming the gamers or retail or lying about production costs.  Hell, you could probably cut costs by just taking your time and producing something of quality rather than breaking the bank on advertising for your shitty game.

So well done Reggie, well done for taking responsibility for the shit you produce.  I hope other people start to think like he does and not just start blaming customers when your shit game doesn't do very well. 

If you wanna read the article on polygon, here is the link
http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/13/4426338/nintendo-if-youre-worried-about-used-game-sales-make-better-games

I'm not allowed an Xbox One says Microsoft

Yet another post regarding the Xbox One blunder train.  It's like Microsoft really hate money

The story is that Microsoft have released a list of countries that Xbox Live is supported in upon the launch of the Xbox One and that list isn't exactly very big.  In fact, part of the reason that the list is so small is because Microsoft have said that Xbox One won't work in Asia AT ALL at launch.

However, they have said that the Xbox One will be getting supported in Asia some time in late 2014, but Japan hasn't been mentioned at all for a release.  So that one billion lifetime unit sales seems like a bit of an insane pipe dream now that you just cut half the world out of buying your console.

But this affects me personally, allow me to explain.

Right now I'm in Sweden, and I'm getting married to a Japanese person in a few months time.  Then, if everything goes to plan, I'll be in the UK for two years before moving back to Japan with my wife and settling down there.

So, if I buy an Xbox One (which I won't now but hypothetically speaking) I would be locked out of my game collection upon my move to Japan because Xbox Live isn't supported there and I wouldn't be able to verify my games.

What the actual fuck Microsoft, what the fuck is your goddamn problem.  I get why they are doing it, it's not like the Xbox 360 did very well in Japan but to just deny the entire country access to it AT ALL is just dumb when your shooting for such massive lifetime sales figures.  What's even worse is that if you are like me, and you live in a supported country but then move to a non supported one for some reason, Microsoft will not let you play the games that you fucking paid for.

The worst thing about this whole situation is that it could have been completely avoided if you just didn't have that fucking stupid 24 hour verification thing.  Sure, I might have not been able to play online in a region not supported by XBL but at least I would have been able to PLAY MY FUCKING GAMES.

I hadn't cut the possibility of getting an Xbox One completely out of my life because I wanted Crimson Dragon and Dead Rising 3, but after hearing this, Xbox One can officially go fuck itself.  Evidently Microsoft don't want my money, fucking morons. 

BONUS KICK TO THE DICK! Here is what Don Mattrick thinks about people who can't get stable connections

Oh and by the way, PS4 is region free

E3 Microsoft Conference "Rape Joke" (Podcasty Thing)

I feel like I'm offering myself up for gruesome sacrifice with this one, but it annoys me so much it felt good to get it off my chest.  It's all in a video this time, I was upset and it was 2am when I filmed it, so I might write something more coherent on the same topic later, but for now, enjoy!