Martha is Dead Censorship

A few days ago I came across a news story about some horror game I hadn't heard of until that point called Martha is Dead that was apparently being censored on Playstation and left alone on PC and X Box.  I then made an offhand tweet about some silliness I saw in the discourse surrounding the game only to find it getting flooded with likes, retweets and a couple of absolutely brainrotten comments from people who cannot read.  So I thought I'd take a little bit of time to say a few things on the issue here.

First of all the censorship itself seems stupid but at this point it's something I have come to expect from Sony.  The clip that is circling around social media is a scene of the game where the player is holding a severed head of some woman and the player character proceeds to use a razor to make cuts in the side of the head and then pull off the face (complete with button prompts!) and then they wear it or something. Sure, the scene in question is sort of shocking but it's no worse than anything else that comes out of other titles in the genre and even out of the genre of horror.  Severing limbs and DIY eye surgery in Dead Space, Lara Croft getting brutalized in the reboot games, Fatality animations in Mortal Kombat, no one seems to give a shit when this kind of thing is going on from huge studios but a small indie group make a face-ripping scene and suddenly its all "ooooh this is absolutely disgusting how could anyone possibly make this?!"

At least for me in Japan, Sony censoring violence is nothing new.  I have talked at length both on the blog and on stream about how parts of Until Dawn were censored so heavily that if affected the story.  Resident Evil is also very heavily censored when it comes to violence even in it's more expensive "Z-Versions".  The story I have heard (Im not sure how true this is, keep in mind) is that in 1997 is that some 14 year old kid abducted and beheaded a couple of Elementary school children and left their severed heads on the school gate for people to see.  The kid was caught and after all was said and done a politician called Shizuka Kamei put the blame squarely on "violent and cruel movies" and so acts of extreme violence in mutilation in films and games have been censored or not really done since then.  

So while the censorship is stupid and shouldn't be done, it at least makes some degree of sense that one of the biggest companies in the entire country wouldn't want to get on the bad side of those rules.  Nintendo, as far as I know, doesn't really have any games in their library that would require that kind of censorship and Microsoft is an American company that doesn't need to give a shit, which is why you probably don't see this kind of thing happening on those platforms.  

But I'll be honest, I stopped giving a shit about Sony censorship a long time ago, thems just the breaks, what my tweet was actually about was the individual user response about the content itself.  Most people responded with outrage at the censorship and that it should be left alone and if that kind of extreme violence in a piece of media makes you uncomfortable to the point of "literally shaking and crying" then just don't play it, something I agree with quite strongly.  What people need to realize is that while "video games are for everyone" is a nice fluffy statement that lets you pretend to be a good person on social media, the truth is that while games are for everyone, not ALL games are for everyone.  If you don't like violent, grotesque acts in your games, don't play horror.  If you don't like difficult gameplay, don't play Dark Souls or Cuphead.  I don't like endless boring life-sim bullshit like Animal Crossing but instead of moaning about it I can very easily accept its just not for me and then not buy it, it's really that easy.

Where I get my back up is when I was scrolling through the tweets and I saw someone describe the developers as "irresponsible" for "releasing the games without trigger warnings".  What this is doing is attempting to villify the creators of Martha is Dead for hiding the nature of the content in the game and acting as if the violence and adult themes are some kind of surprise.  Except that's not true is it?  The game is rated M and has all the relevent warnings and even if it didn't have that, the literal FIRST THING you see when going to the Steam page is this.

It's RIGHT THERE, before you can ever access the game description or the button to buy, you have to accept this warning.  Do not try and pass off your inability to read or lack of attention span on the developers as if it's their fault.  Just because it's not written with the words "TRIGGER WARNING" at the top of the page and is written as a paragraph full of vapid social media buzzwords doesn't mean it's not there.  

Anyway, I had no idea what the game was before this controversy and now I'm excited to pick it up for myself, possibly to play in some kind of October Horror Playlist on stream later this year.  So while the censorship is bad and the controversy stupid, at least I found an interesting game out of it.

Motion Controls Were A Mistake

We are now moving into an age where VR is all the rage.  With the release of things like the Occulus Rift and the HTC Vive, when people talk about novel ways to control games that's at the forefront of the conversation.  But not so long ago motion controls were all the rage with things like the Playstation Move, Nintendo Wii and the Kinect.  It was a terrible time but it seems to have been a fad that is mostly dead now.

It all started with the Wii, when it was announced that instead of having a traditional controller it would have this remote type thing.  People were understandably excited because imagine playing something like Zelda where you could manipulate the sword freely, it was a cool concept.  What the controller for the Wii turned out to be is an awkward piece of shit that didn't quite work correctly and a lot of the best games for that system don't make all that much use of the motion part of the controller.  Hell, I remember buying Monster Hunter Tri for the fucking thing and having to drop extra money on a "proper" controller so that I could play that thing.

After that, Sony tried to imitate the Wii because despite the awkwardness of the controls, it did sort of work and the system was selling well.  The PlayStation Move came out and was largely ignored.  I've never met a single person who owned a move and now that I think about it the only game I can think that actually used it was that Time Crisis spinoff thing.  Microsoft was the company that really came along and ruined it thought with the Kinect.  A terrible, barely functional camera type thing that had 0 compatible games of any quality.  It's legacy can be boiled down to a Star Wars game where they made a bunch of corny Star Wars versions of pop songs that you had to dance to for points.

Motion controls were a thorn in the side of the industry and we are better off now that they are mostly gone.  They still exist in some capacity, for example you can tilt the WiiU controller in certain games for certain effects and that feature also extends to things like the Vita but it's not so bad since the movements are slight and the applications limited.  When a game does feature that sort of movement control as a main feature it's usually not very good.

Like I said before, we are moving into an age of VR now, so it'll be interesting to see if this is another "innovation" that will cause a slew of shit titles for years to come or a quality innovation we will stick with in the distant future.  VR is sort of a cool idea so I'm hoping that it's something we stick with but as of right now, this very second, things aren't looking so hot.  Give it time though, I have faith.

The Problem With Hype

I know I made a post about a week ago about how totally hyped I am for the new Gauntlet, but getting hyped for something is not a thing I enjoy doing to myself.

You see, if you get hyped for a game and follow its development and look up all the information you can on it then you are setting yourself up for disappointment.  If the game that you've finally been waiting for comes out and it ends up sucking great deals of ass, then you are going to feel pretty crushed.  This has happened to me on numerous occasions and maybe that's why I'm a little jaded when it comes to new releases.

On the flip side, if a game comes out and you weren't really expecting much from it but upon playing you realise it's actually really good, then that's a really nice feeling.  That's not to say that you should go around hating on any release that gets any kind of press in the name of avoiding disappointment, but not getting too caught up in the whirlwinds of hype will help soften the blow a little if a game you were hoping to enjoy sucks.

But building excitement for a title is what's done for any entertainment medium, it's how sales are generated.  But for me, when certain games start getting a lot of hype or a lot of praise on release, I instantly start raising eyebrows and it causes me to judge a game a lot more harshly that I would have done previously.

Halo is the best example of this that I ever experienced.  Halo (the first one) was a good game, I enjoyed playing Halo on my friends Xbox when it first came out, it's a well polished FPS experience.  However, Halo got a lot of praise and I mean A LOT of goddamn praise.  It was being given perfect scores and hailed as one of the best games fucking ever made in the history of games.

However during the time of Halo's peak popularity, I couldn't help but find all the praise to be very silly.  I really enjoyed playing it but I had a lot of problems and quite frankly it felt like a massive step back from a lot of the FPS games that I played during my youth.  When faced with a Halo fan I would start to nitpick every little thing because of all the hype it received and in doing that I ended up kind of convincing myself that I didn't like it.  It was only when I got over myself and popped it in again that I realised that is IS a good game, it's just not the 10/10 supergame that everyone made it out to be.

It sounds really petty I know, but if you throw down a 10 I'm going to pull out the magnifying glass.

Enclave

Enclave is a game is an action game that was released in 2002 for Xbox, but just as a testament to how long my backlog is, I only just beat it a few days ago.

Enclave, despite getting quite good reviews at the time of its release, is a game that I think went under the radar of most people.  It's a title that isn't bad and is sort of fun to play but at the same time manages to feel a bit boring and stale if that makes any sense at all.  Plus the thing hasn't aged well at all since 2002 so playing it today feels a bit clunky, but that didn't stop me from having an OK time with it.

At this point I'd usually take some time to talk about the games story but I forgot it because it's one of the most pointless and stupid things every written with lots of silly fantasy terms in it just for the sake of it.  From what I do remember there was some kind of war and the lands were split in 2, a good half and a bad half, over time the lands started to come back together and the bad half started attacking the good half.  Your bunch of heroes have to enlist the aid of some people and put an end to some demon that controls the bad half or something....who cares just fucking cut some orcs already, jeez.

Gameplay wise, it's nothing really special.  You pick a character and you click the mouse in a monsters general direction and hope it dies before you do.  Over the course of the adventure you gain access to new characters like a Knight, Ranger, Druid, Wizard etc. but I beat the whole game with the Knight with the exception of a single level that was filled with archers so I have no idea what the other classes are like at all.

While playing you are given gold to spend on items and equipment and it seems at the start like the general idea is that you have to explore and find the gold, but you get craptons of gold just for beating a level so there really isn't any need to spend time exploring like I did but it does make things a little easier I guess.

One nice thing about the game though is that it has 2 story modes.  A light campaign and a dark campaign, so once you beat the game as a goody goody protector of the lands, you can replay the game as a huge arsehole.

Also Enclave has the WORST Final Boss I've ever seen.  I'd call spoilers but the following video is just 1 minute of me shooting a monster in the face, so I don't really think it counts....

What a well designed boss battle....

It must sound from this post that I don't like Enclave at all, but quite the opposite, I actually really enjoyed playing it.  It's strange, as I was playing and as I reflect on the game I only have bad things to say but do believe me when I say Enclave is rather fun somehow.  I really enjoyed my time with it despite all my griping.

So if you want to give it a go based off my glowing review, then head over to Steam and pick it up pretty cheap.  Failing that, you can dig out your old Xbox and try and hunt down a copy in a used game shop or something, maybe the console version plays a bit better, I have no idea.

Shenmue 3: Good Idea, Bad Idea?

Very recently, I have been made aware of a rather sizable community of people all in support of a Shenmue 3 to be released.  This makes me very happy, Shenmue and its sequel are amazing games and it's a story that has been left unfinished for years now and that's just wrong.

Just to fill people in who don't know, Shenmue was a Dreamcast game that came out in Japan at the end of 1999 and in the year 2000 for everyone else.  It was, at it's core, an adventure game about a guy called Ryo Hazuki trying to get revenge for his father who was killed in front of him by a dude called Lan Di.  The player would walk around town, talking to people, gathering clues and items to progress the plot and having a few fights on the way.

Now after reading that you may think "what's the big deal?" but that's the problem with Shenmue, it's really REALLY hard to describe.  It's so much more than just a bog standard adventure game and there is so much to do crammed into what today would be called a small playable area it's staggering.  Aside from the adventurey revenge plot stuff, there is basically a Japan life simulator in here.  As Ryo you are free to go to shops, talk to basically anybody in the street who all have fully voiced lines, play games in the game center, enjoy some slots, collect gatcha figures....the list of stuff to do is fucking huge.

Hell, if you bought Shenmue you had access to full versions of fucking Hang On and Space Harrier as goddamn MINI GAMES.  Games that you could literally sit there and play for hours are nought but side attractions in the world of Shenmue.  So if the story is so good, and the game play is awesome with lots of content, how could a potential Shenmue 3 possibly be a bad idea?

To put it simply, gaming has changed and it's changed a lot.  Shenmue, as good as it is, is a slow methodical game.  Even the battle system revolves around finding spacious areas to practice in because it's not a simple one and if you don't put in at least a little time getting the hang of it, you'll be screwed.  There's also a lot of aspects to Shenmue that really weren't all that good but gave the game it's own charm.  The voice acting is a good example of this, it's kind of slow, stilted and weird in a lot of cases but not once has anyone called it bad, including myself.  Although, if you sit our current generation of gamers in front of a Shenmue title and I guarantee it'll be nothing but complaints.

Yes, this is what I'm worried about, Shenmue being drastically changed to suit the lowest common denominator.  The battle system being simplified, the amount of freedom being reduced for a "more streamlined experience", the once well placed and well done QTE's turned into a massive annoyance as they just do most of the combat for you, just like the list of the old games positives, the list of things that could go wrong is also huge.

Not that I don't have any faith in good old, Yu Suzuki.  I'm sure if he's in charge of a Shenmue 3 it'll turn out just fine, but keep in mind that he works for Sega, the company that basically wrote the rulebook on how to shit on your own gaming series'.  The other risk a Shenmue 3 runs is that it might come way to close to becoming another Yakuza game.

Not that there is anything at all wrong with Yakuza, but Yakuza is NOT Shenmue, not even close.  If a Shenmue 3 came out and it played just like a Yakuza game I can guarantee there would be the same amount of fan outcry as if you made the game shit.

Don't get me wrong with any of this post, I WANT a Shenmue 3, I really really do.  Nothing pains me more than to see something this good go unfinished and not get the degree of love and attention that it deserves.  My point is that Shenmue was very much a game of it's time and if it was made now, I can guarantee that Sega would not allow it to be made the way that we want it, it would be changed because they want it to sell.  Remember, gaming is now this mainstream thing filled with people who don't want to put in the time and effort to experience something like the people back in my day.

One final point to address.  There is some talk of people wanting a Shenmue HD collection, which sounds like a great idea at first, but let me just leave you with one image about why you might want to be careful with that idea too.

Yeah, this isn't the good old days of the Dreamcast anymore, let's pray that maybe something will happen with the Shenmue series, but let's also be very careful what we wish for.

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!

Microsoft...What are you doing?

So we have heard about everything we could want to hear about the upcoming Xbox One, and everything we have heard so far has been fucking awful.

With E3 round the corner you think this would be a good chance for Microsoft to clear the air, justify their decisions, talk to the fans and sort this mess out.  So what do they decide to do?  Cancel their post-press conference meeting with gaming media at E3.

Now I'm no PR expert and I'm more than willing to admit I'm wrong about this if I am, but to me this seems like a fucking TERRIBLE idea.  Part of the problem with this big shit storm is that people aren't really getting solid facts, just this sort of vague stream of information that we don't like. 

Recently I've been hearing stuff like you can share your game library with your Xbox "Family" which can only include 10 people or some such nonsense and it's not like that makes the whole thing any better.

So everyone is getting upset about the vague, crap information that we currently have, and the post-show round table seems like a great time to talk to the gaming press and get some good hard facts out there to maybe make your system not seem like a complete waste of time.  So WHY THE FUCK would you just run away from that?  What the hell is wrong with you?

My guess is that they realised how bad they fucked up on this one and facing the press must look like suicide at this point.  I've been hearing all sorts of rumours about rushed production and games not being ready but sources for that are unreliable at best, but if it IS true then it makes sense why they don't want to talk to anybody, it'll just make them look even worse.

Also there are a number of people on the internet saying stuff like "Well the PS4 has been pretty tight lipped about similar issues" and while you may be right, that is the key difference here.  PS4 has been talking about games while Xbox has just had TV and sports with a little bit of doom and gloom.

Maybe I'll be just as outraged about the PS4 after E3, maybe some miracle will happen and the Xbox One will look great after E3, but right now, the Xbox looks like shit and Microsoft look like idiots.

Xbox One Used Game Fee

When there were all these rumours flying around about how the next gen systems will blocked used games I was laughing at people.  I was like "There is no way you can possibly believe that right, that would be the dumbest shit!"

But I have been thoroughly told to shut the fuck up and had my chops slapped about by a news story on IGN with the headline "Microsoft Details Used Game Fees, Installation Requirements"  You can read the thing for yourself just here

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/21/xbox-one-may-have-mandatory-game-installs

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME?!

What planet doe these people live on?!  At what point in time did anyone think this was a good idea?!

Now, I know what people are going to say when people moan about this.  They are going to be saying stuff like "yeah, but you use Steam and that's basically the same thing!" or "You've not been able to do that with PC gaming for fucking years" etc. etc.

Well guess what shit biscuit, I've NEVER been able to do that with PC games, even before I started using steam.  In the UK, GAME wouldn't take used PC games, and my experience of buying used PC titles from other stores like Gamestation has pretty much ALWAYS ended up in tragedy.

I remember buying fucking Half Life 1, used and the damn thing not having a CD key, then me having to ask my friends dad to give me HIS fucking CD key so I could play the damn thing.  Plus the thing about Steam is that while there are games on there for full price, the vast majority of my steam library has been purchased on the cheap.  Steam make up for the whole 1 account thing by offering shit like Game X + All DLC for like £2.50.

Hell, after selling some items on the Steam Marketplace I picked up Dragon Age: Origins + all the DLC and expansions and what have you FOR NOTHING. £0, $0!  It was paid for totally with TF2 items that I obtained FOR FREE ANYWAY.  Thank you Steam!  I could have bought some other stuff too if I didn't get curious about DotA keys....bad move....

But you know what? I'm not even all that mad.  PS4 seems to be focusing on games and isn't doing it.  Wii U, once it picks up some steam will probably end up pretty strong and THAT doesn't do it.  3DS and Vita don't do it.  So you know what Xbox One? Go and fuck yourself, if you want to implement your little money grubbing used game fee, go ahead, but all you're doing is shooting yourself in the foot and basically handing this entire generation over to Sony and Nintendo.

You have seriously, dun goofed

Identity Gaming Podcast #1: Xbox One

So I thought I'd start something new.

Every month I'll do a podcast type of thingy where I use my voice to give my opinion rather than text.  Today I was talking about the new Xbox One announcement and how I thought the whole thing was fucking terrible.  Everything  else you need is in the video, so here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM9fXIVDVGk

I'm having to post the link since Blogger won't let me embed the video right now, I'll change that tomorrow morning.

Also sorry about the boring backdrop, I wanted to do this quick while all the info was fresh.

Rabid Fanboyism is Dumb

With the PS4 and the Nextbox (because 720 is a dumb name) on the horizon, I've started to notice more and more fan boys popping up to defend their favourite system, and this is annoying and it should stop.

Above is an old advert for the Megadrive (Genesis if you're American and WRONG) basically slagging off Nintendo in order to try and drum up sales for the system.  Now I owned a Mega Drive back in the day, I thought that shit was the bees knees, but I never slagged off a Nintendo system.

Sure, I would have arguments with my Super Nintendo owning school yard friends over which shit was better, but that wouldn't deter me from heading to their house after school sometimes and playing some of the old SNES greats.  In the same way, when they would come to my house they would be really hyped to hop on a bit of Sonic 2 or Golden Axe or whatever.

The debates and the sharing of systems continued for years and years, when all of a sudden the debates around which system was better changed.  No longer would people argue the pros and cons of a system, it all just devolved into "MY SYSTEM IS BETTER AND YOU'RE DUMB!", but the language was much harsher.  It's basically been the same since that switch, where trying to debate systems on most forums will just land you a load of personal attacks rather than any decent discussion.  It died down for a while but the whole Microsoft Vs Nintendo Vs Sony thing is starting to rear its ugly head again.

So why did this shit even start? When did people get so defensive about their system of choice?  Well I'm going to make an uneducated guess and say it was when Halo came out.

As fun as Halo was, it was released on a system that basically had nothing else going for it.  There weren't all that many great games on the Xbox, at least not compared to the PS2 or whatever, but it had a few.  This is where I think it all started though.  People would buy an Xbox for Halo, then realise that there were maybe, 2 or 3 other games worth playing and then feel that they had to justify the big money splurge.

In trying so desperately hard to justify their purchase, they brainwashed themselves into having a sense of brand loyalty and that is how the "rabid" fan boy was born.  Then again, I'm probably talking out of my ass but fuck Halo it wrecked FPS (I just want my Doom-esque shooters to be popular again)

Still, it's not like fan boys are going to stop me from buying all 3 systems in the end and enjoying everything the next generation has to offer, but I wish I could have a decent discussion without having my sexuality brought into question just because I think the WiiU looks promising.  Your loss morons

A Gamers Dilemma: The Eternal Backlog

OK, well since last nights post was a little bit on the crap side, I thought I'd shoot for doing 2 today.  This post I want to talk about something that I've been struggling with basically since I gained a second video game console, and that's the backlog.

I think if you own a PC and a gaming system at least, chances are you have some kind of backlog.  For the luckier gaming enthusiasts, your gaming backlog may be around 2 or 3 games, maybe 5 at a stretch.  However, I'm not what you would call one of those lucky gaming enthusiasts.

Usually what I do, is I'll be playing through a game, usually quite a long one, and during that time I'll be buying basically every daily steam deal, scouring GoG for cheap stuff and picking up obscure JRPGs and the like that I'm convinced will disappear from existence if I don't buy it RIGHT GODDAMN NOW!

So the situation that this has left me in is that I have a HUGE gaming backlog, some games I bought on release day about 2 years ago and STILL haven't touched.  What makes this even worse is that I have now moved to Japan and most of my gaming stuff is back with the family as I'm not about to take all my consoles and all my games on a plane with me.  So the only thing I really have access to now, is my PC and a PS3(not including bits of my old collection which I can emulate) which I recently bought and I know that when I do go home, I'm going to be buying all the stuff for Xbox and Wii that I couldn't buy when I was here, and new systems if they are released by then.

What makes matters even worse is the fact that I'm spending a great deal of time in Japanese arcades, playing coin-op shit rather than slogging through my ever growing backlog, so I'm doomed to an eternal backlog of games that I'll be trying to get through until I either quit gaming as a hobby or die.

For those who are lazy and don't want to read the above post: So many games, so little time