There and Back Again - Console and PC gaming

This is my story of starting out as a console gamer, becoming a PC gamer, and going back to being a console gamer. It's a boring, but interesting perspective into the many different ways we can play games and what I ultimately found is my personal favorite way to play them.

Console Gaming Rise and Fall:

As a gamer of the late 80's I grew up during a time when Nintendo exploded out of the shadowy grave of Atari whom nearly took the entire gaming industry with them, I was locked into being a console guy. At the time, I presumed computers were only meant for making spreadsheets or it was a glorified calculator. I didn't get a PC in our house until 1998 and I was just a few short years from high school. My first game on it was some pinball games that I couldn't get to work on it. I abandoned the idea and went back to my N64. Eventually, I came to discover Final Fantasy 7 in the infamous TV spots they had for the game making everyone think the game looked like the greatest looking thing ever. I bought the PC version of the game, again having no idea if the PC I had could run it. Luckily it did, and I was able to play one of the greatest games of all time.

I didn't think much of it though, the novelty of playing a game on a PC. I just figured it was a good way to play games my N64 couldn't play. Fast foward to near the end of the Gamecube era, when nothing was coming out for it, and everyone was enjoying release after release while Nintendo spends a year transitioning to their new console and ignoring their current one as they always do, and I sit twiddling my thumbs trying to get more life out of Smash Brothers and Mario Sunshine.

Having nothing new to play, I started playing around with my new PC, that I bought for college. I heard about a game called Lost Planet, and it looked gorgeous, and I knew Nintendo would never get it on their new system the Wii, because it wasn't capable of running it. I didn't want to buy an Xbox though, at the time I was quite a Nintendo fanboy. I still am, but I'm not against a system anymore because of who makes it. But at the time I was totally that way, I wanted nothing to do with anything Xbox. Then I discovered Lost Planet was out on PC, so I searched to discover how to get it on my PC.

That's when I discovered Steam. My very first purchase on Steam, was Lost Planet. I had no knowledge of PC gaming though, literally none. I tried to run Lost Planet and it would barely launch. After some research, I learned I needed a graphics card. Didn't know anything about those either, so I bought one that was $150 and figured I'd be good. I was good luckily, the game ran great. I also learned how great it felt to do my own handy work on a PC and get things running. Also, I really liked using the mouse to aim and shoot. It felt way better than controllers.

Still being the Nintendo fanboy I was though, I tried my best to get through my gaming needs with the Wii and would use the PC sparingly for games I couldn't get on the Wii. It wasn't long until I learned Nintendo didn't care about a gamer like me anymore, and was busy making casual games with crappy waggle. I defended it, tried to work with it, forced myself to like it. But something in me knew I wasn't happy. I even bought a Playstation 3 when it came out. Buying the Playstation 3, and having a Wii at the time I did, was what drove me away from console gaming to PC. Neither console had any killer games on them for quite a while, what felt like an eternity. I got very impatient.

Emergence of a PC Gamer: 

 Then Crysis became all the rage. A game to end all games in terms of sheer beauty and action and only PC gamers would be getting it. I obsessed over how I would play it, what did I need, etc. I wanted to spend as little as possible, and did everything I could to limp my cheap computer along giving it new graphics cards, and a new processor, more ram etc.

I learned a lot about PC's trying to get Crysis to run. I finally did, and I was rewarded with a really good FPS game. I also now had a PC that was on par with a PS3 and Xbox 360. The 360 was getting a lot of great games the PS3 either wasn't getting or was getting sub-par horrible ports. From Bioshock to Oblivion, I started collecting games on PC. I discovered modding, old RPG's I never heard about, and the infamous Steam Sale. The value of PC gaming was compiling, and I was drawn in. I still bought console games, but I was ready to actually build a fully fledged gaming PC and pour some real money into it.

I built a great gaming PC. It was more powerful than current gen systems, I could mod games, the load times were superb, the system didn't update every time I wanted to play since it did that stuff in the background. The interface of Steam was just so perfect. I started to notice PS3 games ran jittery or would lag making me start to concern myself with frame rates. Playing on PC these same games ran smoothly, like Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2. Developers were seemingly making games barely able to run on the consoles they were developing them for, but the PC could with ease. It became apparent to me putting forth the effort on PC gaming rewarded me with the gaming experience developers were intending on their games.I started buying games on PC first before considering consoles.

It was a magical time. I got the better versions of games like Dragon Age, Metro 2033, I got PC exclusives like Civilization 4 and Diablo 3. Apart from console exclusives I got all I needed out of my PC. Load times, modding, mouse control, all digital games no need to change discs (yes I'm lazy), cheap game sales, etc etc. I felt like the future of gaming was PC.

Driven Out of Paradise: 

Jump to today and PC gaming is in shambles. Negative after negative of being a PC gamer rears its ugly head. From having to maintain expensive parts, to rampant online cheating, to baron online games, and the most egregious non-functional PC ports.

Starting with expensive parts, I've never been a good judge of being able to future proof. I'm too cheap I guess. I kept buying graphics cards that were just good enough. Then a new game would come out that I could barely run, and force me to buy a new card. This has happened about 4 or 5 times, and it's REALLY expensive to keep making those mistakes.

Baron online games is another good place to show the cracks of PC gaming. The PC gaming community is small, and I didn't expect it to be as small as it actually is. Today, if you're not CSGo, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Star Craft etc, the tip of the iceberg of games on PC, then you're going to struggle finding games to play with others online. Battlefield Hardline was when I first noticed this problem. The game died in less than a month. $60 completely down the drain, you literally cannot find a game online to play on PC for that game now. I had this happen with Street Fighter x Tekken also. And believe it or not, it happened with Call of Duty AW on PC too. You can find games, but only TDM and it takes a long time, sometimes there are no games.

After finding no games in SFxT, I popped in my copy on PS3 and there's an abundance of people still playing it. It's then I realized I really shouldn't buy multi-player games on PC unless they cater to the PC crowd who seems to like free to play type games, MMO's, or games that if you put thousands of hours into you can unlock hats and shit. The PC crowd is just too small, and too picky. They'll hold onto their 15 year old Counter Strikes and 10 year old World of Warcraft and not embrace new games like console gamers do. They are just not the crowd I can relate to. I can't play a game more than 50 hours anymore it feels like before I move on to another game.

Lastly, non-functional PC ports has been the last straw. Two series specifically caused the straw to be the last one...that broke the camel's back? Anyway...Assassin's Creed and Batman are two game series I bought exclusively on PC from the get go. They looked great, they ran even better. Then Unity and Arkham Knight came out...I'm not sure I even need to go into the gory details of those suffice it to say Arkham Knight is still not available to purchase anymore after being taken away for how broken it was on PC and no one could run Unity properly even if they had a $4,000 PC. I've been lucky enough to not have bought any of these broken messes of PC port games because reviews come out fast and hard on Steam warning me of them. Mortal Kombat, Watchdogs are two other notable PC port debacles, as was Dark Souls and Final Fantasy 13 (both have mercifully been fixed).

I shudder to think how Mad Max will run or Metal Gear Solid V. I can only presume they'll be awful on PC, the track record in the past year has been appalling, and I can't with confidence buy any of these games on PC like I can on PS4. In many of these instances, the core development team has nothing to do with these PC ports. They are hiring contractors to port these games to PC, and on the cheap because the return on PC isn't as good as console. They are treating PC gamers like a dog and throwing them table scraps. It has made me give up on treating PC as my first choice for new games.

Epilogue:  

So, as I sit here reflecting on gaming in general I find myself disappointed. The potential of PC gaming is so high, the heights of which console gaming wishes it could do, and it's being ignored because there's no money in it versus making a game on PC where you can sell digital hats, or digital cards. I understand it, that doesn't mean I have to like it, so I return to my roots, back to console gaming where making a buggy mess of a bad game is punished with reduced sales and angry people on twitter and your sales suffers because of it. They're just not as afraid of when that happens on PC because they don't need as many sales to make it profitable.

If PC gaming keeps going this way, the progress made will quickly contract. Steam was growing at a very fast pace, but this kind of behavior from developers will ruin PC gaming further than it already is. To wrap this article up in a nice little bow as I pretend to be a good writer, this is what Atari went through. They released a deluge of buggy, non-functioning, or complete garbage games that drove players away and stopped trusting that their $50 would amount to anything more than buying a plastic paperweight thus culminating into the video game crash that Nintendo eventually swooped in to fix. It was also the very reason they had what was called the Nintendo seal of quality badge on their boxes, to ensure customers they were buying a quality game.

This isn't the road you want to go down PC developers, you're going to lose us.

*That picture is us leaving...not literally on a ship mind you...figuratively speaking...thought I'd explain that...seemed important...yeeeeeaaahh....*

Yahoo Game News...Just Stop It...Please!

Dear Yahoo,

Please stop trying to inform me on gaming news, you are terrible at it, you've always been terrible at it. I have used this blog on several occasions to point out how awful you are at delivering game news. You used to write your own articles with crappy sources, wrong information, and even worse opinions, but these days all you do is repost other gaming sites, or sites that have something to do with gaming. I actually applauded you when you stopped trying to write your own articles, you figured out that you didn't understand gaming in the slightest. You used to repost from decent sites like IGN and Gamespot. But lately....what happened? Did your repost robot break? It is reposting from sites like Vox and Gamefaqs!

It doesn't surprise me that you don't know Gamefaqs isn't a gaming news site, but what's worse is your robot is reposting message boards...yes that's right MESSAGE boards. The one you see above was written by some random nutter on the internet (much like myself) who declares his passionate hate for Indie games littering the PS4 store. It is an uninspired opinion at best, and at worst not entirely thought out either. It surely didn't deserve a front page on Yahoo's website. But if that's what Yahoo finds compelling for gaming news...far be it for me to judge.

And Vox? Really? You need to stop reposting Vox stuff. All Vox is that I've seen, is a website that absolutely hates white people and America, and anything capitalist or remotely right wing. I am about as liberal as you can get, but to these guys I probably sound like Rick Santorum. Still, they have absolutely ZERO insight into gaming culture or gaming news. They write click-bait articles designed to point out how atrociously "unprogressive" the gaming industry is by wagging their finger at random things in games, and getting offended by anything and everything they can attempt to spin to sound offended. I'm picturing a guy working for Vox who has the unfortunate task of writing this tripe googling video game images to learn about a game and then trying his damnedest to loop in a way to be offended to have an article in before lunch.

I think this is where you and I need to part ways Yahoo gaming. Before I used to be able to make fun of your articles, but...now you're just a robot reposting things. It's not funny anymore, it's like making fun of an answering machine.

*PS - Feel free to repost this Yahoo*

Assassin's Creed and Bandwagons

Make no mistake, I am a fan of the Assassin's Creed games. I think they are really fun and well crafted, and just damn pretty to look at.

With that out of the way, the new Ass Creed as I affectionately refer to them as, was announced yesterday...to a SLEW of hate from gamers on nearly every board I looked at. This new Ass Creed is getting Call of Duty levels of online hate (yet still bought by millions) and it's not exactly sudden. This has been brewing for some time with fans lamenting how "samey" the games feel and I can understand the sentiment. It's never been quite THIS overwhelming though, so what changed?

Unity happened.

Even die-hard fans of the series bought Unity and it was practically unplayable for about a month or so. This is about the worst thing you can do to a gamer. Blue balling them by delaying the game is one thing, but when you have the game all lubed up inserted into your system for easy penetration and you're still blue ballsed? That's a slap in the dick face.

So it's no wonder really why gamers are so outraged and skeptical over the newest entry, but, I feel as though they are far too harsh if not riding a bandwagon of hate. Looking over Ubisoft's gaming career, when has something like Unity ever really happened before? Something on that scale of unplayability? I can't name another time this happened from them. They didn't have some awful track record like EA with its long list of anti-consumer policies that drove gamers away by the truck load. This was ONE game, ONE instance, unless you were one of those gamers who felt lied to over Watchdogs marketing the game wrong, there hasn't been too many instances where Ubisoft has annoyed fans...except for Uplay also...ok...ok so there's a bit of a list here!

I am getting a sense of bandwagon hate here, it just seems too overwhelming in the comment sections. Sales of the series still being fairly high indicates to me that I'm not alone in liking them. Same goes with Call of Duty or Madden, people do like them, but you'd never know it if you only read comment sections. I almost wonder if the lack of positive comments is related to people being petrified of the recent waves of internet bullying from people with holier than thou opinions on literally every topic. I feel like this is where the internet has gone, and the "conversation" has become extinct. Everything has to be blue or red, right or wrong, Chinese or Finnish (I'm obligated to mention minorities in every post now...yeah I know right?....thanks Obama)

I guess where I'm at with it...is I just don't care. I love the series, I love the settings, I love the adventures, and the music, and at the end of the day Ubisoft is giving me what I want as a gamer and I just don't feel entitled enough to ask for "more" when I barely know what that would be. I actually asked angry fans what they wanted, and MOST of them said they didn't want a buggy game. Beyond that, they couldn't articulate how they wanted the series to change or evolve, instead they're just tired of it, which is something I understand, but it's not something that ever happens to me. If they made Mega Man 1 million I'd be the first in line to buy it. What? I love Mega Man dammit!

The point at which I start actively hating a company is when they actively stop making video games I find fun, or selling me a broken game that they refuse to fix, and so far Ubisoft has yet to do that.

*Is it...is it in yet?*

Holy DLC Batman!

Something weird happened in gaming news this past week that has me completely befuddled, flabbergasted even. A bunch of gaming news outlets like IGN, Gamespot, Yahoo (if they count) commenting on the press release they got from Warner Brothers about the newest Batman game having a $40 season pass. So, immediately my first reaction to this news is, ok yep nothing new here...mooooove along. But then...something happened. The titles of these articles were of outrage! $40 Batman DLC! Nonsense! Blasphemy! Outrageous! MUUURRRDDERRR!!

Ok, I went a little overboard there on the last reaction. But the message was clear from gaming news sites. They weren't going to stand for $40 Batman DLC! Solidarity with gamers! I guess...? Wait...I thought we all liked DLC...Didn't we? I wrote a very unpopular blog years ago that was rebutting a post made by the head guy at CTRL ALT DEL who was defending DLC and how great it is for gaming etc. And his opinion was reflecting the voice of gamers at the time, most agreed with him that DLC was fantastic. Getting more content out of a game you love? Great! Pay for it.

That's not the aspect of the argument I disagreed with however. What I hated was the practice I was seeing where developers were clearly done with certain things they were charging separately for like maps in CoD (especially "retro" maps that they've already done for previous games), or characters in fighting games that were already ON THE  DISC WHEN WE BOUGHT THE GAME (Capcom SFxT). I went through a diatribe about the shoddy practices of DLC, and lamented at days of yore when a game was sold to me for $50 that it was done and that the full experience was thus rendered to me as intended. Instead the full experience is now segmented behind pay walls that were otherwise unknown to me upon purchase. Now, it's just expected to see something like a Season Pass like what we see here with Batman.

Except, though, now suddenly gaming news sites are angry. Why? We've dealt with the $50 CoD Season Map pass for well over 6 or 7 years now, Borderlands had its $50 season passes all over the place. Bethesda would split its DLC into $10 or $20 increments with the expected Game of the Year edition to be released less than a year later for $60...which is what normal gamers paid for the game without that extra content initially....So it comes as a complete shock to me, utterly surprising that suddenly my complaints about DLC are being reverberated by gaming news sites. But why now? It's awkward timing isn't it? The whole gamergate thing has finally died down, many sites changed their policies as a result, lots of people were fired, the backlash was felt, and made waves.

Are these sites suddenly being more receptive to their audience now being against these anti-consumer practices like this DLC crap? That's my only guess why they're doing this, because otherwise it's entirely hypocritical to have never brought it up before this. This has been going on for years after all with plenty of other developers doing it openly and freely and the only real backlash I ever saw to it was against Capcom for Street Fighter X Tekken when we found their DLC on the disc we already bought. Somehow Bungie got away with it when people found their DLC on the disc of Destiny and posted videos of it though. No one complained about that.

The inconsistency of all of this is what pisses me off though. So far they've been fine with Activision, and EA shoving $50 map packs at them, but SUDDENLY Warner Brothers has the gall to charge $40 for a season pass and everyone flips their shit. I don't get it, I can only speculate, and that's essentially the point of this rant. I'm just looking for some consistency here, that's all. Will this be a trend though? We'll see...a new Call of Duty comes out in November after all. Then there's god knows what DLC going to be attached to the new Star Wars Battlefront.

Will they complain about it, or will it get a pass like usual? Who knows. They're probably getting paid off by them and Warner Brothers forgot to cut the checks for this one most likely. 

*Gamers keep whining and I keep whining about them whining*

Why I Don't Care about Amiibo's

Nintendo are a smart bunch aren't they? A bit slow sometimes though...especially when it comes to change that's forced on them, rather than change they can control like the smart phone situation. Amiibos are a result of Nintendo looking at Skylanders and saying, hey...we can do that! Amazing that it's taken them this long to come up with it, though it's not like they haven't dabbled in this sort of idea before with their Card Reader attempts. Clearly though, people like tiny statues more than a pack of cards that unlocks otherwise useless game additions as not to alienate people like me that don't want a tiny statue so I can re-skin Kirby in his game or whatever. I don't buy skin packs in games for 99 cents, why would I spend $13 dollars to do it?

That's the short of why I couldn't care less about Amiibos. The long of it is a bit more nuanced, and much more personal than practical than my short reason. I'm not writing this to convince anyone, by all means please go out and enjoy your tiny statues, it doesn't affect me in the slightest. Frankly, I'd prefer people did buy them so Nintendo can keep making my favorite games. 

 So...wait why am I writing this? I guess I hate fads, especially bad ones. I also consider myself a gamer who sees the funds he has in increments of "games." For instance, 5 Amiibos is the value of 1 AAA game. 3 of them is worth more than half of a game. Putting myself in my own shoes standing in front of a store shelf littered with tiny statues of Mario, and Super Mario 3D World and not wanting to leave the store spending more than $60 the choice is clear as day to me, and any other choice is baffling to borderline offensive to my senses. Clearly, I am choosing to get the Mario game. In the game Mario can do so many more things than take up desk space, that alone trumps the uses a tiny statue can provide me.

Obviously, taking the game centric view that I have about it that I do, the conclusion to buy a game is always the choice and the only choice and not everyone is like that, which again is why I am perfectly fine with people buying Amiibos if they want them. Though, the other layer to this is the fad craze that rubs me completely the wrong way. Nintendo is doing what Nintendo does and making the Amiibos in limited quantities to drive up demand. I can't blame them for this successful tactic, and I won't, but they have been...well...way too successful at it this time. These Amiibos have become another Beanie Babies as many have noted. The thing that irks me most though, is this time we KNOW what they're doing and people are still buying into it like moths to the flame. When the Beanie Baby craze happened there wasn't the internet telling us we're all stupid, we just had Fox News bringing that revelation and after they did that, the Beanie Baby madness stopped. Instead, these Amiibos were PREDICTED to do this to people, and it's still being written about on other gaming websites as it happens. People are being straight up informed their stupid lizard brains are being manipulated into buying these silly things and yet, they're still all the rage. I'm not sure whether I should be annoyed by the very effective marketing that's taken place here, or the collective masses who are most likely going to have buyers remorse years later much like the Beanie Baby collectors did.  

But, I don't really care about them and I'm pretty sure they don't want me to care about them while they enjoy their tiny statues, I'll use my money on things I want. That's how the market works after all, but I can't help notice the sheer amount of manipulation going on here to get people to think they want something they otherwise wouldn't want. It's the pet rock scenario shaped like a cute little Pikachu or Mario...god dammit they are cute aren't they...NO no...must regain control, yes...ahem where was I? Yes, so the point of all this blather I guess is to serve as a bit of a warning. As someone with a marketing degree, who's seen this all before, really ask yourself if what you want are tiny statues, or if you are being told you want tiny statues. If you don't really care either way, that's fine too, ignorance can indeed be blissful as they say, there's no actual harm here after all. Unless of course these things are a massive terrorist brainwashing plot conceived by Nintendo to rule us all! Think about it...follow the money...etc etc

*Nintendo: Allah Akbar!*

Final Fantasy Type 0 Review - Do You Hear the People Sing?

Final Fantasy Type 0 is not an ordinary Final Fantasy game of recent years, because this game is actually good, a big departure from the last 10 years of FF games. It still has some flaws, some kinks it needs to work out, but overall it is pretty good fun. You also have to tone down your expectations a bit as this was originally a PSP game, so graphically it's not the best. But let's go over this one a bit. Also, you should be checking out my stream as I played the whole thing on Twitch =) twitch.tv/acefondu


Graphics:

As mentioned the graphics aren't great, it's a PSP game blown up and retextured quite a bit to make it even remotely viewable. This isn't your ordinary HD release though, you can tell they put a lot of work into making the game workable for the big screen. There's only so much you can do though, and its hardware origins shine through with jaggies abound. It's perfectly tolerable though, and the frame rate never dips unlike the FF15 demo that came with the game which runs at a consistent 15FPS...Still, there's nothing here to impress graphically speaking except of course, some of the jaw dropping cutscenes that are done in CG.

Story (spoilers): 

There's not much to say on this game's story unfortunately, and mostly I have a negative opinion of it, however the game does contain some of the best scenes I've seen in recent Final Fantasy memory. There are three scenes in particular that bring a bevy of emotions in the beginning, middle, and end of the game. They are so powerful, and so moving that they make the otherwise completely boring plot tolerable. The ending of this game is probably my second favorite FF ending ever just behind FF9. Again, that's not to say the story was good though sadly.

It mainly revolves around Class Zero a group of students who have been tasked with stopping one of the three kingdoms from gathering all 4 Crystals to take over the world. It's told very dryly, with some very basic politics, and weirdly your own commander hiring one of your group to spy on the person that gave your team power.

No one's actions besides the evil empire kingdom makes any sense at all. Namely, the two characters you meet at the start of the game Rem and Machina who are essentially the main characters of the game. They join Class Zero to fight the good fight. Machina is tasked with spying on Class Zero (even though he's told this later as some kind of "revelation" to him (how the hell did he forget?). Machina never really seems to care about this, and this plot NEVER goes anywhere meaningful either. His main concern is to protect Rem at all costs who is dying from what appears to be a minor cough...., and he gets...well decidedly evil while trying to do so. Think Anakin Skywalker going Dark Side to learn how to be powerful enough to stop people from dying. Anyway, so Machina is hateful toward Class Zero even though they try to help him, he's just VERY mean overall and later becomes a l'Ce in hopes of gaining enough power to save Rem. This, again, never really goes anywhere. He ends up FIGHTING against Rem and stabbing and killing her at the end...which he then cries about....after HIS mask comes off....so I guess his mask made it so he couldn't see who he was stabbing? It's very unclear and another point against characters performing actions that don't fall in line with their character or just don't make any sense at all.

Anyway, he turns Crystal as l'Ce sometimes are want to do and that ends up saving Rem after they come out of Crystal stasis like...a few hours later. That's when the ending starts, and I'm not going to give it away, the game does that for you leading up to the final battle anyway, but I cannot recommend seeing it enough. It's very well done and the whole thing reminds me of Les Miserables if you've ever seen that play. Class Zero are the Students, they just are, 100% the same feeling. It's quite good.

I will point out one other aspect to the story I thought was a missed opportunity. Machina was clearly made out to be a villain, yet Class Zero never confronts him, you never fight him. Yet we really should have, it was a huge missed opportunity.

Gameplay: 

This was the most solid aspect of the game. The gameplay is very basic yet very deep. All 12 characters from Class Zero have a special way to play, they are ALL very different and fun. Everyone gets skills that suit their class type, Trey can rain arrows with his bow, Cinque can use her mace to cause an Earthquake, King shoots stuff with guns...etc. You'll find use for each of their unique move-sets throughout the game. Or you could play the way I did and discover Ace is good for every situation and wrecks everything in his path. The game is decidedly too easy if you over level any of the characters. Also, don't worry about over leveling for the final area all the enemies are level 16 for some reason...and you'll likely be in the high 30's by the end.

This brings me to the biggest complaint I have about the game. The end boss is effectively a QTE battle. It's not...really QTE....but you can't die, yet at the same time you're supposed to die. It makes sense for the story but as a gameplay element it makes no sense why you don't have a real fight at the end. If you play it you'll understand. There's literally no reason they couldn't have made this a legitimate battle. So yeah, this game falls prey to horrible boss sequences newer games seem to be doing these days for no reason at all. From Dying Light, to Far Cry 4, and Shadow of Mordor, developers have no interest in making final bosses anymore, even if they've made perfectly serviceable bosses earlier in the game. So it's not like they're incapable of making good boss fights, it's just that...they don't want to? Lazyness, budget concerns, I dunno why this trend continues but it's getting on my last nerve.

Music: 

Amazing, get this soundtrack, one of the best FF has produced in years. It's that good.

Final Thoughts:

Type-0 is in unorthodox game with its mission structure, strange time limit system between missions where each thing you choose chops off a certain number of hours leading you to "mission day," and paradoxically a terrible cast of characters surrounded by absurdly well directed scenes that make you want to care about them ever so slightly. This is the closest we've moved forward in the FF series since the dark ages of 12 and the 13 series to having something feel 'epic' again and filled with emotional value where the characters are invested as much as the player again. Kudos to them on this game overall. It's steps in the right direction, not leaps and bounds, but, certainly, it's good enough.

*FF Type-0....it's good enough*

What's Wrong With Destiny

A while back I wrote an article about how much I was enjoying Destiny and having a blast with it. Well, rose tinted glasses aside jump to...what 4 months later, and I couldn't hate the game more now...There's several reasons for this, but most of them have to do with how much Destiny has changed and what it's "evolved" into and in some cases what it's refusing to do.

Every so often Bungie will release a new update to the game, something that gets me excited and interested in the game again. Then they'll shit all over it by changing something else that I did like about it. To really understand where I'm at with this game we'll have to look over the history of it briefly.

Destiny has done some things right and some things wrong from the get go. The gun-play has always been good, and the multi-player competitive modes have always been pretty fun too. You could play the game solo, in a group, or do the competitive modes and have a blast and get the gear you needed, though it is arguably slower in multi-player to find the gear you needed. You could even farm a cave of infinitely respawning enemies for gear too. This wasn't just some random gear either, you were going for the legendaries, to have the best stuff available like in any game of this type. It was rewarding and fun, though super grindy but not unexpectedly so. You would also level up your gear by getting items found in the world, and you'd break down other items for those components too. It was simple, and easy and wasn't too ridiculous to do.

Jump to today....and it's a fucking mess. Philosophically speaking, the game gave players a choice initially like I outlined, letting you choose to play with a team or solo doing competitive modes, etc. However, the way that gear is obtained now the best items must be acquired through the Raids, which wasn't the case when the game first came out. This means grinding anything other than the Raids is pointless. Which, isn't a terrible thing, except that this game doesn't have match making. Bungie has stated many times they'll never add match making to the Raids because they feel you have to coordinate too closely with people and doing this with strangers wouldn't be any fun. They are, entirely full of shit however. Who just has 5 other friends lying around with nothing better to do than to romp around some online game for 4 hours on a Tuesday night? Maybe it's because I'm nearly 30 years old and most of my friends have moved to new States, or have kids now that this bugs me. It would be impossible for me to find 5 friends with the same schedule as me to get these raids done. That's why EVERY other game you can think of has match making. And Bungie is either arrogant or entirely stupid to think that people aren't just gathering random ass people on Gamefaqs or their own forums for teams. So instead of providing a sensible service like match making, they're making players do all the work for them. I find this to be either incredibly lazy, or incredibly ignorant, and in both cases it's not amusing to me.

I've been playing Diablo 3 for the past week and, honestly, it has only highlighted even more why Destiny is such a fucking failure. First of all, to find the items I need in Diablo 3 to make my character build work I don't have to have a team at all. I can play all the content Diablo 3 offers solo if I choose to. But it's built as a party game right? Of course it is, just like Destiny is supposed to be, except the major difference is I can join any game I want in Diablo 3 without signing into the Diablo 3 forums and begging to be on someone's team to fucking do it. You know what you have to do in Diablo 3? You click "join," and then you start playing.

Then the fanboys defend Bungie by repeating their rhetoric, "oh, it would be really annoying to play the Raids if a few people in the team suck and can't beat it." You know how Diablo 3 solves that very problem? A vote system to kick the player out. It works EVERY time without fail. If someone isn't pulling their weight, you kick them, it's done, and a new guy joins within seconds.

Why I'm SO incredibly pissed about this is because the game has "evolved" into forcing players to play the Raids if they want the best gear, or even SERVICEABLE gear now, or EVEN to get to the MAX LEVEL mind you. Which is utterly retarded. You know how I get to the max level in ANY game not named Destiny? I kill shit until I'm there. Done. I wouldn't be this incredibly upset if they kept Destiny's philosophy the way they intended. I would have no trouble playing their competitive multi-player and just saying screw off to the Raids and Weekly's. But no, you can't do that now. The competitive multi-player component nets you complete SHIT in terms of gear now. It's incredibly useless outside of just being fun. But for character progression? No, fuck that you have to do the Raids.

Outside of flat out hating the Raids in general for being butt-fuckingly horribly designed and boring, you can only do them ONCE a week anyway. What kind of grinding is this? If I want gear and I'm willing to play for it why am I being forced to pause the game every week? WHY? What kind of grind game is this? Diablo 3 doesn't make me pause the game for a week, I play it whenever I want to like any sensible game.

Defenders of the Raids saying how great they are need to seriously wake the fuck up too. Just because the Raids are different than the dreadfully repetitive shit you've been doing for 200 hours previous, does not automatically make the Raids well designed. Well...they suck, they honestly suck. Take the first Raid as an example. The first part is a mindless section where your team has to hold the area to make a door open. To be fair, this is the least offensive moment the Raid has to offer in terms of being horribly designed. The next section has us fighting off a bunch of singing...robot things...and if they sing too much your team gets cursed and obliterated if you don't walk into a circle of cleansing...that the enemy has provided for you in their home base apparently. This isn't such a bad concept but it goes on...and on...for like an hour. Then you fight a boss where 1 guy has to break his shield with a special weapon that once again the enemies provided for you (nice guys they are). This is a pretty fun fight actually, I have no complaints here. Then the game forces you into a stealth segment...the worst designed stealth segment in gaming history. Forget that this game isn't even designed to have stealth in it, and games that are designed with stealth in mind are usually pretty bad at it too, and you have yourself a shitty slow walk down a few hallways that makes me want to sniff used baby diapers for a half hour than EVER have to do this again. Next we have a large plat forming section which again is embarrassingly badly designed. Destiny is not a Mario game and it shouldn't pretend to try either, it just embarrass itself. Then there's the final boss...which when I played it was so fucking bugged you could push him off the ledge. Or you could have done it the fun way and encountered more lovely bugs like the portals not fucking working and causing your whole team to wipe because everyone got through but you and now you're blind and stuck on the other side....

YEAH...this is what Destiny fans call "fun." I call this a big fucking headache and I want nothing to do with it. Even if I did, I don't have the will power it takes to post on Gamefaqs for a squad to start one of these damn things. This is one of those commitments that would have to be started in a drunken stupor where I forget my own moral code and accidentally click a "join" button in the game....THANKFULLY Destiny doesn't have one of those! Far be it for a "social experience" to have a button labeled "join" right?

I hadn't intended focusing so much of this diatribe on the Raids, but honestly, that's Destiny now. You either Raid or you don't play the game because there's no other reason to play it. I'm just so pissed today because Bungie announced match making for the Weekly, and I got all excited and then they reiterated they're not adding match making for the Nightfall or Raids still. So like, wtf? That's like giving a starving man an apple seed while you walk away with a bag full of fully edible apples. Fuck off Bungie, seriously...

*Social Game Destiny....minus all those terrible social things in games like a decent chat system or match making. Enjoy!*

Opinions Can Be Stupid

I learned something interesting today about the modern gamer, or at the very least one person in particular I had a debate with online. I have always held the belief that all opinions are valid as they are opinions but I'm struggling to find validation in one I heard earlier today. Someone had posted a comment that Sonic has been bad since Sonic Adventure because of the story, strictly because of the story mind you. For anyone who has been a gamer for more than a year of their life I would believe could point out how hilariously ridiculous this opinion is. Sonic has never been about story, he's been about game play and it's pretty clear. Sonic, like Mario became famous on well tuned game play and defined himself by being the faster edgier version of Mario. That's all we knew about Sonic really. He fought a guy who builds robots who...I guess was taking over the world? I dunno, it wasn't very clear but there in lies the entire point. We played those games because they were fun, not to learn some deeper meaning about golden rings or deformed flying foxes.

I don't need to beat this point into submission, it's fairly self evident if you're a gamer. If you aren't I'll set you aside and explain it to you better, lol. But the purpose of this blog is to ascertain whether this opinion is objectively stupid or not. The argument against it is simple enough. He could be a fairly young gamer who started out playing Sonic Adventure which had...some semblance of a plot I guess and he played it strictly for that reason. This is somewhat understandable given how terribly Adventure played (though still better than some of his more recent games), and yet I still can't help but call this opinion completely stupid.

If we just look at gaming in general we can see that it's a medium where the interaction between player and software is paramount. From the get go game play is king regardless of opinion, the very medium itself is about this. Games have indeed become more complex as we've grown and there are some that are more about the story than the game play such as Final Fantasy. But is Sonic one such game? Is the narrative so deep and compelling we can argue that's the reason we should play them? I've never met an individual that would argue this point until today. Frankly, if the story was so compelling why did it take nearly a decade to learn what the lead villain's real name was, Eggman or Robotnick?

Can we still argue that this person really does want to play Sonic for the plot? I mean, that is his opinion after all. But then we have to ask obvious questions. Should I be playing Devil May Cry for the platforming, should I be playing Tetris for its amazing AI, should I be playing Far Cry to improve my map reading skills? I think there can be a "wrong" reason for playing a game, and this would be one of those cases. If I were playing Devil May Cry for its platforming I would be ROUTINELY disappointed, but who's fault would that be? Would it be my fault for expecting great Mario-like platforming, or the game's fault for me not recognizing the game is about slashing demons? I think it's pretty clear, again. But maybe I have my blinders on? Let me know if I'm just crazy on this issue.

*Sonic=Shakespear*

Why I Don't Like Free to Play

I try not to have biases when picking games to play. Sure, I tend to avoid stealth games because I've never understood how avoiding things in a game was "interactive" entertainment, and that's one bias that will likely always stick with me. I had none going into the idea of these "free to play" games however. They come in all shapes and sizes, all types and genres, and all manner of quality and quantity. But they all have something in common, something that just bugs the crap out of me and immediately turns me off. It's not the micro-transactions either. I know full well developers need to eat too, so I don't begrudge this practice. Though, some handle it better than others to be sure. My issue is simply, what am I supposed to be doing here?

This isn't a question of how to play a game either. This is a question of, what did the designers intend for me to do, or rather what am I supposed to have to beat this game? In game development, designers give you things to beat the game. In Mario you are given Mushrooms at specific points in the game to make you bigger, and give you a chance to overcome harder challenges to come. The Mushroom is there for a VERY specific reason and was tested and intended to be there for you.

Imagine though if you will, a Mario game with no Mushroom. That you are handed the game where you must play through it with no Mushroom, no Fire Flower, no Starman. It would still be do-able to be sure, but it would surely be much harder, and definitely not as fun. Frustration would overcome the enjoyment of the game. Now imagine the game where you had to buy the Mushroom, or buy a Fire Flower or Starman. Imagine 100 other items on top of that, which are meant to assist in some way. Having never played it before, would you know whether you needed a Mushroom to complete the game, or would you think you needed something else? How would you know for sure? Are you willing to pay for something you're not sure was intended by the designers to advance in the game?

This is my dilemma with the Free to Play model. You're thrown in with rags and a pea shooter in most and the pause menu is littered with items for you to buy. What do they do? Am I overbuying, or underbuying? Did I just waste my money? What are other people buying to win? It's these questions and complications that pulls me away from these games. I couldn't care less if a game was "pay to win" that's how gaming has been forever. I paid $60 for Bayonetta 2, it came with ALL the items the developer intended to include, the good ones and the crappy ones. It was up to me to mess around with them all to figure out best practices and best combinations to win, and I eventually did and really that's part of the fun. It was $60 though, did I pay to win? I guess so, but so what? The developers weren't trying to trick me with this transaction. They gave me what was intended, a completed product built with purpose which Free to Play never is. They constantly evolve, update with new items and classes, and patches can even come around nerfing something you were winning with before.

On top of that, you have the issue of pacing. A lot of free to play games with a "pay to win" structure are dismissed by me on the notion of pacing more often than not. X person who paid $200 will get to the endgame and best gear faster than you will who paid nothing. Again, I don't care about this. As a gamer I just want to beat the game, see those lovely end credits so I really don't care if I'm the tortes or the hare. But many free to play games have a pacing issue so ridiculous that even playing 300 hours won't get you to the end, or to a point of some satisfactory completion because of hefty limitations imposed on the player because they didn't buy stuff. Once again, I don't mind that the developers need the money, but what am I supposed to get? Do I get the $30 plan, the $60 one, or is the $200 plan the "intended" or ideal increment to enjoy the game properly. Usually I have no way of knowing this, and if I'm expected to pay upwards of $100 for a single game then I will say no thank you. Would a game release at $100 and justify the kind of content free to play delivers? I highly doubt it. Many of these lack what $30 games can offer, or even $15 indie games like Binding of Isaac which has over 400 items in it (just think of the pay to win structure that game could have had).

The way free to play is structured makes it hard for me to understand the developer's intentions, and hard for me to understand what the ideal experience is. More often than not, that "ideal" experience is met with more than I'd like to afford in their game and often feels like a bait and switch. I don't think these developers understand that gamers don't mind buying your game if it's good, they just want to know what they should buy and don't want to feel cheated. It's a hard balancing act to be sure, and maybe it will never be a model that I can ever understand being such an old school gamer going back to the age of Atari.

So, I guess I have a bias against Free to Play games and it's not that I'm against paying for good content, I'm just not understanding what the "good" content is supposed to be.

*"You've reached the allotted number of quests for the day. Pay $10 for more quests or fuck off"*

Bayonetta 2 - Review

It's hard to review a game that's perfect in every conceivable way....

So I won't....

It's perfect, go buy it.


*Did you buy it yet? Get on that!

Nintendo vs Mobile Gaming

I'm getting pretty tired of seeing articles about how Nintendo should get into the mobile gaming space. What is amusing about these articles is you really never see one of them on a dedicated gaming website, but instead on some analyst site, or news site. What sparked the debate was mainly from Nintendo's own stockholder's meetings last year when the Wii U was struggling even more than predicted. A transcript of that meeting was released where some at the meeting (who also do not understand the gaming market well at all ((seriously read the transcript they ask some honestly dumb questions)).

One of the things they bring up is mobile gaming and why Nintendo hasn't sought any revenue from that area of the market. What really bothers me about these suggestions isn't just that Iwata or Miyamoto doesn't feel there's profit to be had there or that they fear it will hurt sales of the 3DS, both logical assumptions, but that none of these analysts understands Nindendo's business model and how they've functioned all these years.

Nintendo is probably the most paranoid company in the world. They hold everything close to the chest and nothing more-so than their in house properties such as Mario, Zelda, etc. Their company model is entirely built on their hardware, and they need Mario to sell that hardware. They have stated in the past that if they ever leave the hardware business they would be done making games too. They won't become what Sega has become, a game publisher. They don't even VIEW themselves as game publishers for the most part. They view themselves as a company that makes hardware. They are not interested in making games for consoles they can't sell.

They not only see making a Mario game on the iPhone as an affront to sales of the 3DS, they see it even worse than that. Not only do they feel that would hurt the sales of their system by offering a Mario alternative, they see Mario as something that will SELL their 3DS. It's not so much that they mind you are buying an iPhone, but they want you to buy a 3DS too, and they're not going to do that by wasting energy and time making a Mario game on the iPhone. The software they make is strictly there to sell their systems, period. That's how they view this game business. Sell the console first and the rest falls into place, that's their business model. Once they sell you the console then everything else begins, sales of controllers, accessories, and yes, more games. But they always care about the consumer that doesn't own their systems yet.

Whether they are right or not about this stance, that IS their stance and their business model from ground up. They are very slow to change and very nervous about being in competition with their own hardware which is perfectly understandable. It's why Microsoft didn't want to put Halo on PC, they wanted to sell Xboxes. They reluctantly did eventually, but we haven't seen another Halo game on PC since Halo 2, methinks they took a page from Nintendo. If you want to sell consoles you limit the choices consumers have about getting the software they want. That's why first party games are so important to Nintendo and why they don't give a rats ass about third party games. They want to sell the consoles, period. Get with the program "analysts."

This is why you rarely see these articles on actual gaming sites because they KNOW Nintendo like I do, and they know it's absurd to suggest it.

*I am picturing Mario as an Angry Bird flying at a pile of Goombas....that could be fun...*

UPDATE: I figured I should update this to note that Nintendo caved, and I ended up being wrong lol. That Nintendo caved to investor pressures though is...frankly unprecedented so I maintain that my theory about their business practices was incredibly sound =)

Time Heals All Games?

I have recently been running a test on a theory I had about 'bad games' or games when I played them I was disappointed in. The theory I had was that over time, my opinion of a game will change for the better. I've found that as I've aged I get more forgiving of a game's flaws, or notice them less, or even compare it to the current state of games and things I hate about them and have the old saying, "in my day" fond reflection on them.

Now I haven't taken this theory too far back yet, but my inclinations began by playing the PC re-release of Final Fantasy 8. I loathed this game when it came out. Firstly, it was a love story, a romantic drama and it didn't do it very well at all. It's not my cup of tea. I much preferred a fantasy or sci-fi setting for a game in which the story centers around a great protagonist and a great villain like what FF6 or FF7 gave me. I played it through again though recently, and, well it's still a god awful love story to be sure, but I noticed I was enjoying the battle system a lot more. Having been my third play-through of the game I was very familiar with it by now and knew what I had to do so I wasn't fumbling around a 200 page Brady Games strategy guide for my 40 hour trek. It made the game more enjoyable, and thus my opinion of it has softened from vile hatred to it's not so bad.

Similarly, I recently played through Bioshock 2 again and while my initial opinion of Bioshock 2 was basically, "it's not as good as the first," it was a much harsher opinion of it than I have now. I actually believe 2 is better than 1 now (though Infinite is the best still). At first I argued 1 was the best because it actually has a boss fight and your activities around Rapture a much more varied than Bioshock 2. But, I was ignoring how many great improvements 2 had.

Firstly, the characters of 2 are much more interesting. Sure, we all love Andrew Ryan from the first game, but the protagonist wasn't as involved as 2's was. In 2, you are the first Big Daddy, and you have a direct relationship with Elanor which gives the game tension and suspense throughout as you uncover their history. It's not nearly as detached as the first game. Also, the combat in Bioshock 2 is better as well as you get to wield a gun and magic at the same time. The music I also found to be much better also.

Bioshock 2 is really only mired in how you collect Adam as it's very repetitious...and also makes no sense. In 1 you kill a Big Daddy and choose to save or suck dry a little sister. In 2 you kill a Big Daddy and then you have to make her collect more Adam before you choose to save her or suck her dry? Why? It's very clearly tedious filler.

Never the less, my opinion of the game overall changed for the positive as years passed. I'm down to my last example though as I don't normally force myself to play a game that I remembered hating. Final Fantasy 12 is a game I absolutely hated when I played it. My opinion of it went like this:

"It's a game that starts off strong and then devolves into a 40 hour treasure hunt for Nethicite ignoring all the characters and their plights to basically retrieve what amounts to a nuclear bomb to win a war. The only two decent characters are Dr. Cid and Balthier. There's no airship or overworld despite having a pirate as one of the main characters who you are introduced as someone owning an airship. Characters actions makes no sense either. The battle system is an utter travesty as you have to rest your faith in the AI far too much. The License board should burn to the ground with how incredibly stupid it is."

I had a list of other complaints too at the time, but a lot of them have phased away. Sure, some of these have remained. Characters do make really dumb decisions like right after Vaan and Basche escape the prison they return immediately back to Rabinastre. They also move freely in Rabinastre afterwards, despite being wanted. Or why is Old Arcadia guarded by 2 guards that you must do a ridiculous 20 minute side quest to pass rather than just take them down. Or when Fran sends you ahead in her village to find Mjirn she comes to you later saying the wood told her Mjirn isn't here. The very next set of lines she's accused of not being able to hear the wood now, and in shame Fran agrees that she can no longer hear it. But...the wood just accurately told you Mjirn isn't here!  Of course, I need not remind you of the "I'm Captain Basche" incident. Still, overall the writing is damn good. There's a compelling story in here about an ongoing war, corruption and takeover, political intrigue, assassinations, and of course a band of rebels who take back what is theirs against all odds.

The basic structure of the game's plot is Star Wars when you boil it down. I can't tell you how many times I see Balthier as Han Solo and Fran as Chewbacca. But at a deeper level the writing is really well done. There's actually character development going on here unlike FF13 had. Vayne was a really good soft spoken villain as well and we got to learn about his history with his brothers and how he had been shaped into the man he is by those experiences. Larsa is a nice complementary addition to the drama too. Balthier is actually funnier and better than I remembered him. Ashe is much less dull than I remember too, but she's still pretty dull sadly. She's mostly stressed out by the loss of her kingdom and husband in such a short time. I also like how they don't shoehorn in a love story where it didn't belong. Ashe remains loyal to her deceased husband, not that she needs to, but there's a war on and it doesn't make sense for her to adjust her focus on a new relationship so the story doesn't go that way. The absence of this speaks volumes where most games would shoehorn that in because it's easy mode drama. You can tell the writers really stuck to their guns on the story, and made sure to have the characters act in as much a natural way as they could. Sadly, Vaan and Penello are still pretty useless and not focused on at all. They are as Vaan puts it "just along for the ride."

Still, my impression of the story had improved greatly after playing it again. My negative thoughts on the battle system are also washed away. The gambit system, though reliant on AI is programmable down to such minute details that it rarely screws up. It does a much better job than FF13 did. The license board is also no longer a complaint of mine. Actually, it's one of the games strongest points. Many complained about not being able to equip certain items and that it's dumb to not be able to wear a hat you buy at the store because you don't have the license for it. Logically speaking I agree, but focusing on character growth and progression options the license board does a far better job than FF10 or FF13 did, let me explain why.

RPG's often try to have systems that makes the player feel like they are having an input into how the character is customized and how they are formed, FF12 actually succeeds at this with the license board. In FF10 or FF13 you are following a designated path for each character, there's really no reason for you to be there. You could just level up and have it say +5 for str, there would be no difference, but instead you have to pause the game and select +5 on the sphere grid or crystarium. It's senseless. But in FF12 you get to branch your characters out with what armor they wear, what weapons they should use, what magics they can learn etc. You've chosen their path through the game, you feel as though you've had a direct input in their growth and it makes the game more personal this way. Sure, it's not the BEST idea in the world, but it feels nice, it works within the system and it's interesting.

My major complaints of FF12 have softened quite a bit and the game looks much brighter in my eyes. Will time have the same effect on other games for me? Should I go back and try Grand Theft Auto 4 again, or Metal Gear Solid 2? I cringe at the thought, but the at the same time wonder if maybe it's not such a bad idea.

*Superman 64 still sucks by the way*

Smash Brothers 3DS - Smashing Good Time

 

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this review, apparently 3 million people already bought this game. It's a wonderful addition to the Smash series so I'll just quickly go over why upgrading to this new game is worth it!

Smash Brothers Brawl had a lot of issues. It was too slow, the online was a mess, and it added in "tripping" which was a random occurrence when you run you could potentially trip. Absolutely no one liked this. Thankfully, all of these complaints were addressed by the new game. The tripping has been removed, the game has been sped up (still not to Melee standards), and the online works REALLY well for 1v1battles. I have 50 games under my belt and maybe only one or two games lagged, it was phenomenal.

Other positives are they also made it way easier to unlock characters which now takes 3 times less overall Smash matches to get them unlocked. It also boasts a massive roster that now includes Mega Man and Pac Man! Another lovely change is edge-guarding is no longer a thing. If you guard the edge the opponent can steal it from you, this opens up a lot more strategy and planning for matches rather than just be an edge camper. The game is way more interesting now from this minor adjustment. They also very closely listened to the fans about balance and so far this game feels pretty even with no obvious Meta Knight like Brawl had, though as usual the game seems to favor the faster characters. Yet another welcome change is they made every stage have an "Omega" mode which makes every stage a flat playing field so they can all be used competitively.

I believe that rounds out all the welcome additions. Though you can also add by subtracting too. They decided to remove the main single player campaign that everyone hated in Brawl, and I have yet to see anyone get annoyed by that move. Personally I don't mind little distraction modes like that, but in Brawl you were basically forced to do it. I think they could have kept it in if they made it optional. Luckily, every mode in this game is optional, you can play it any way you like.

I only have a few complaints about the game and most center around the online. While the 1v1 is SUPER solid it comes with drawbacks. You can't use items, and you are stuck with the Omega stages. As fun as competitive Smashing can be, Casual Smashing can be even more fun. It does have a casual online play mode though, but you're forced to play 4 man free for all, or a 4 man team game. Normally this isn't an issue, but the connection suffers greatly in these 4 man games and is damn near unplayable. I've only had a small handful of these matches run well, the vast majority are a slideshow. The best Casual match I  had was when two guys dropped and it turned into a 1v1 casual game with items. GREAT! They should have had a mode of 1v1 Casual online. That would have been perfect.

I also hear tell that local 4 man games lag heavily. Why? This is inexcusable. I haven't personally tried this, but I've heard about it from several sources and it's pretty disappointing. Some suggest turning off your Street Pass to make it work, but that's absurd, it should just work. I know Nintendo is releasing a New 3DS with more horsepower so possibly that one will fare better, but it's still inexcusable that local multiplayer lags.

The only other minor complaint is the controls. The Circle pad is not optimal for this game, but it's really not THAT bad either so it's just a minor annoyance. It's just not as good as a Cube controller, there's no way around that. The New 3DS will actually improve the game a lot letting you Smash attack with the second stick so that'll clear up most of the control issues.

Apart from that it's an amazing package. There's plenty of challenges to do, many game modes, many Trophies to find, and if you like 1v1 Online like I do then you'll always have something to do in this game.

*Hulk Smash too!*

Why Am I Excited?

Today I turn 28...and I must be losing my mind. Square just announced they are releasing the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy on PC and Steam, for like $15 a game. If you've read this blog you'll find my personal trilogy of reviews on these three games and how much I hated them. Yet, this announcement fills me with excitement! WHY?

I mostly hated the story of the 13 series, it is dreadful, and makes no sense. The characters are bland and none of them are any fun. Admittedly, I DID have fun playing these games for the most part. Despite my undying hatred for how they did the battle systems, a lot of it was personal preference versus how it played, and they played well, but I would have done it differently. I was still sucked into these games from start to finish regardless eagerly awaiting every new battle I started.

But honestly, what is making me anticipate these games on PC? The novelty maybe? I love that my favorite games are coming on PC and Steam, and though 13 would never make that list of "favorites" it's a sign of things to come. It's a sign that game companies are looking at PC seriously again. After an 8 year drought of developers fearing pirates and lackluster PC sales they are crawling back slowly but surely.

Maybe this is what excites me most. Seeing all of this previously exclusive console games come to my PC is fantastic. I love having all of these AAA games in one lovely place on my Steam folder. It's so convenient. Plus...these prices! My GOD these prices! Investing in PC is by far the best thing I've ever done as a gamer. Not to mention I never trade games in, so it's perfect for me.

Still though...FF13 exciting me? Really? I think I am getting too old...

Game Design

Something that comes up often with gaming and people commenting about what is good and what is bad is the term "game design." People on the internet are full of opinions, and they will throw this term around all willy nilly without really understanding what they are doing. They will cry foul over the choices a developer made with regards to how your character levels up, or discuss bad AI, and then they'll say this was "bad game design." In some of these arguments they could very well be right, but you have to carefully phrase what you are talking about when you toss around this term and many do not understand this.

What is "game design" after all? Can't it be applied to everything about the game? Yes and no. The overall idea of game design asks a simple question, "What is the goal of x?" X can be anything from level layout, characters, weapons, graphics, etc. But the most important thing to understand when discussing game design is we have to look at what the game is trying to accomplish, what is the goal, and does that design choice accompany that goal in a positive way, or hinder it. Judging game design on this merit is far less subjective and much more objective, whereas just saying something is "bad" or "good" is entirely subjective.

A perfect example to use here is Metroid Prime 2 where they attempted to throw in multi-player combat. If you were to look at the game design of Metroid Prime you'll find that the game is entirely designed around player versus enemy AI, or what we call PVE. From the lock on system, to how Samus moves, the game is designed as a PVE experience and without heavy modification to this structure a PVP (player versus player) mode will ultimately not accompany the goal set out by the designers when they developed the game very well at all. To wit, the multi-player of Metroid Prime 2 was indeed, "badly designed."

It can be difficult to separate one's own personal opinion versus the objective view you should have when discussing whether a game was badly designed or not. Another example would be Ninja Gaiden Sigma in any section where platforming around the environment unsuccessfully can lead to a detrimental setback for the player. This is badly designed because platforming in Ninja Gaiden was poorly implemented and does not fit with the game's overall design well, and then to punish the player for attempting to jump around the area skillfully when it doesn't control right is really bad design. The difference here is the subjective statement of the game having bad jumping mechanics, and the objective statement that the game also has bad level design because of this badly done mechanic. Having a jump mechanic is in and of itself not a "bad design" but the implementation of it in levels that don't accent it certainly is. The level design needs to accent the game's strengths, and when it fails to do that, then you can say it was badly designed.

Most gamers will agree that any mission involving having to protect an AI is another good example of bad design and they would be right. In most cases, games have not developed AI well enough to work in the situations they are attempting. And, in most cases the game's central goal is rarely that of "protecting" something but instead of "killing everything." It would be apt to call that segment poorly designed as they are not supporting the game's central goal with this mission type, nor does the game possess the infrastructure to handle it well.

To further assist in understanding the difference, take this hypothetical example. The goal of designing a soccer ball would be to make one that rolls well, bounces, and can go a good distance when hit. In thinking of how do I make such an object, the first thing you should consider is that you should make it round. A poorly designed soccer ball would therefore be square as it is not adhering to the goals of what this object needs to perform in use.

Needless to say that doesn't mean an opinion on "design" is entirely objective either, because it does include some subjectivity. Take for example an upgrade system in a game. Someone may feel that the upgrade system supports the design of the game very well, while someone else may feel otherwise. Both can have their logically reasoned points, but the difficulty in the argument comes in ensuring you are removing your personal preference in which upgrade system you'd like to see versus how well it works with the game.

A great example here would be Final Fantasy 8. Subjectively I can discuss all the many ways FF8's upgrading system is heavily flawed. How it homogenizes all the characters making them blank slates for you to dictate how they'll perform which removes personality to the characters, how the levels don't matter in the slightest, how tedious it is to acquire materials for the upgrading system, etc. While I'd vastly prefer the design used in previous titles, I have to once again ask myself if the design of it is "bad." Though I still think even this is still somewhat bad design, it's much less harsh of a review than my personal opinion of it. Did the developer succeed at what they were trying to accomplish with it? I would say they very much did. This is a game where you can fully customize your characters how you see fit, equip them with spells, dictate their health, strength, resistances, speed, etc, to such a meticulously high degree and it's done fairly well with minimal tedium. Where the bad design might come in to play here, is it was very confusing early on. Otherwise the system does work.

So there you have it, my overly complex understanding of game design and how it should be viewed more objectively than people tend to on the internet. Am I being a little too picky here? Absolutely, but I find it all fascinating none the less.

*Why is my character's sword 8 times his body length? What dumbass designed it this way?*

Console Wars - The Reverse Buyer's Remorse

I've always been fascinated with human behavior and psychology. Why do people do the things they do? Usually I've applied my untrained yet keen eye on matters of politics, economics, and characters in fiction. One thing I've never really thought to do was take a look at the gaming community...which I really should have given their very strange behaviors about certain things.

The absolute peak of strange behavior in the gaming community is easily "The Console War." What is a console war? It's when two or more companies release a game console and fans of both yell at each other online explaining why they chose the right console to have fun with. To such an extent, they will even attack you personally as a human being for choosing x console over y console. It gets pretty intense, and has so ever since Nintendo fought Sega.

Baffling isn't it? Why would gamers do this? Why would they put themselves under such emotional duress over which game machine someone ELSE purchases? Don't we all just want to have fun and play games? Well, it's not so simple it seems and I want to delve into why.

Prior to the age of the internet, console wars were really simple and made a little more sense. You'd convince your friend to want a Nintendo system so he'd tell his parents to get him one. The reason being is you already had a Nintendo, and you wanted to play together, or share the same gaming experiences. Unconsciously, you were taking sides so you could essentially remain friends. You'd worry that you may no longer have anything in common anymore if you couldn't play the same games together. This is psychologically what was happening but on the surface you were just openly bad mouthing the system you didn't have, because there was no way your parents would buy you both of them and you knew it. Plus, everyone hated "that kid" that did have both...rich snobs... ;)

It's way different now though. Now us gamers are a "community." Well...we're several communities split by what console we own and further split by certain games that more or less consume all your time. As a community though, we're mostly strangers. You're no longer trying to keep a friend, but you're trying to ensure that there are people to play with online. With the massive number of gamers now in these communities though, I think what is driving gamers to take part in these console wars though is less about having people to play with, and more about something I'm calling Reverse Buyer's Remorse.

As you know, buyer's remorse is when you buy something and wish you had your money instead or something else, but now you're stuck with the thing you got. What I am dubbing reverse buyer's remorse is when someone makes someone else feel buyer's remorse so that they can feel better about what they bought. For instance, a PS3 owner can make fun of an Xbox owner so they can feel better about having a PS3 and not having an Xbox. Usually they can't afford both, so they create a reason for not wanting both to substitute the bad feeling of wanting to own both systems. Because, in the end, we're all gamers and if we could have it all, we certainly would. But relieving that yearning for both consoles, while improving your feelings for only having one of them, is a powerful relief for those that take part in these console wars.

It's further driven by others in the community agreeing with them and having it take on a sort of mob mentality. Being in a room of others that think like you do is very mentally rewarding. Nothing makes someone in a console war feel better than when someone from the other side says they wish they got your console instead. There is a moment of success there. A victory even. You've done it, you have now proven that your gaming machine is superior, you've chosen the right gaming console to play on. It feels great, but there are still dissenters out there, so you continue and maybe even continue just to have another moment like that one where you 'convert' a gamer if you will, to your side.

This kind of behavior isn't limited to gaming though, and isn't even something that only kids do. Adults do it all the time with just about everything. "Oh, you got the 2012 Dodge Avenger," they'll say sarcastically, "We got the 2013 Malibu, it's a much smoother ride." Or they'll say things like "We've had terrible experiences using AT&T, I'm sorry you have to deal with them now, we've switched to Verizon." These statements aren't helpful to the person you are saying them to, it's not "advice" like you think it might be. You're just making yourself feel better for whatever purchase you chose and they didn't.

I think the theory of reverse buyer's remorse is the biggest motivating factor for these types of behaviors. Of course, I have no studies to prove it, I'm not a psychologist, I'm just one gamer with an opinion and I could easily be wrong. There are also plenty of other factors involved as to why console wars start or persist, I just personally believe this to be the biggest reason. If you commentors are out there please feel free to discuss this topic and add your two cents.

*"My mom bought me Sonic!" "Don't you own a Super Nintendo?" "Yes..." "Oh...that sucks..."*

Destiny - Day 1 Review

For the first time ever on Start Button I will be doing a DAY 1 review of a game. Usually I absorb myself in a new game, let my mind settle on it and then write about it later if I feel I need to. But this is probably the most hyped game since Titanfall (I didn't even write about Titanfall....quick review: it's really fun you should check it out!) so I thought it would be a good idea to have a topical game article on here for a change.

Without further ado let's dive right into it!

The Good:

The gameplay of Destiny is a mix of MMO, and the loot and shoot gameplay pioneered by Borderlands. Destiny does a lot of this setup right, and much of it is left to be desired.

What it gets right is the core gameplay, which is very important to ensuring the game will have legs and be fun. Bungie is the king of rock solid FPS action and this game is no exception. The shooting mechanics feel fantastic, you really feel like you are delivering some impactful mayhem on your enemies with nearly every weapon. None of them feel like pea shooters so it's satisfying to kill something every time you do it...which is good because that's all you're going to do in the game.

Character building in this game is very thoughtful and interesting. On the surface it feels like you just select skills after leveling up, which you mostly do, but your gear levels up too based on your actions. You can add skills to your gear and that's where most of the customization will come into play for everyone. People will choose different builds to focus on, and may likely end up having more variety than say Borderlands where all you do is pick the two of three trees you want to focus on. So in this regard it does much better than Borderlands did.

Since this is a Day 1 review I haven't unlocked all my skills yet so I can't say whether the skills are above average yet or not. I will say that so far they at least feel more noticeable. Like unlocking double jump for instance you immediately notice something new about your character. Unlike in Borderlands where skills would consist of adding 1% critical hit damage. You knew you were stronger, but you couldn't really tell. If this sort of unlocking continues in Destiny, I will be pleased.

The social aspect of Destiny is done VERY well I feel. It seems very easy to jump in with another group and form teams. I joined two in my playing of the game and I didn't even try, they just randomly invited me. People you see roaming around all have the ability to quickly pause and click on your name to say hey, I need some assistance. Seems to work wonderfully, though I haven't tried to form a team yet myself, I didn't need to when people kept inviting me!

The enemy AI is pretty bad, but the enemy variety is good enough. There are enemies that chase you, some that hide, and they try to maneuver on you. Bosses are bullet sponges making battles long and nail biting. It's nail biting because if everyone dies, or if you're going solo and you die, you have to start at the last checkpoint. This is both good and bad design, but mostly good in my book. It's bad for people who keep losing and spend hours on one boss, but it's good for people who want a challenge and the game is preventing people from just coasting on by. It's making you work for it and think about your movements deeply rather than going headlong into a fight and dying. It gives you CONSEQUENCES which few games do anymore, and I respect that highly.

There are a variety of other things the game does right too, crafting, upgrading / equipping, customizing your character look, unlocking rewards, interacting with people though limited brings the laughs like kicking soccer balls around or having everyone sit after a mission completion is hilarious to do and watch happen.

Apart from gameplay, the music and sound effects are great, you really feel the kick of your guns. The graphics are phenomenal too. The environments, though lifeless and sterile, are very pretty to look at.

The Bad:

For all that Destiny gets right, it does need quite a few improvements on the gameplay front.

Firstly, for being a loot and shoot type of game the loot you get is pretty limited. You're not inundated with gear like you are in Diablo or Borderlands. One could argue this is a good thing as nearly everything you do get in this game improves your character whereas 99% of gear that drops in other loot games is totally worthless. But part of the fun is collecting that useless crap hoping for something good. Seeing stuff drop is always a "chance" that it'll be good loot and that constant carrot on a stick is what keeps you motivated to play more. That's why they design them that way. But not so for Destiny. Most of your loot is given to you after you complete a mission. They aren't even dropped on the ground for the most part, you're not actively picking it up, it's just given to you. Destiny gets one half of itself right, the MMO part, and doesn't really understand the loot part.

The next bump in the road is how repetitive this game is. From a personal standpoint I honestly don't mind, I am still having a blast actually playing this, but I can see most people getting bored really quickly. There is one mission type the entire game, go here, fend off waves of enemies, repeat. It's even worse that these missions are also set up the same way too. When you get to the destination that you have to encounter waves your little Navi thing called Ghost has to scan some shit while you "defend" him. I put defend in quotes because he has no life bar, but the motive is you're defending him. EVERY mission is this way it seems. It's pretty ridiculous how little variety there is in missions. Borderlands had about 4 or 5 different things it had you do and was fairly creative on how it delivered those setups, Destiny is very straightforward however, very deliberate and if you're not motivated enough to improve your character, or don't find the core gameplay as solid as I do, you'll lose interest quickly.

Another reason to lose interest quickly is just how painfully bad the story is. There are no excuses for how bad the plot is of this game. While I haven't beat it yet to see if it improves, the first 5 hours has been nothing but dribble. The entire plot so far has been just a bunch of vague...vagueness. Your character apparently was resurrected from the dead...though we're not sure how that's done or why. They go on and on about "light" and "dark" just about every other line includes these words in some form or another. The plot basically reads something like this: The light of the light will carry your light through the darkest dark parts of the darkness against the dark forces out to kill the light with their dark powers. May your light be brighter than their darkey dark....nightlights...Ok, I got a bit carried away there, but with no frame of reference to what the hell they are talking about, this is honestly how it came off to me.

They completely missed the very first step of storytelling which is to introduce the characters and let the audience know a bit about them and what problems they are dealing with. All we really know is there is there's some last city of the human race and they are apparently being protected by zombies called Guardians resurrected by flying monotone tiny robots. One guy even says they will not survive their next attack. Ok well, let's run the fuck away then right? No instead he sends you on a mundane task to gather information....kaaay.

The awful plot is compounded by terribly written side characters like one female hunter you meet who, again talks entirely too vague about whatever nonsense. But what I could make out is at one point she tells you of a super important place to go to and then your character smartly asks her if she can show him how to get there. She response with "that's not my path," and I couldn't have facepalmed harder. WTF does that mean? It's not your path? The human race is at stake and you want to pussy-foot around? If this was Mass Effect your character would get the evil choice to choke her to death until she told you where to go. Seriously though, she doesn't say why she won't tell you, there's no "prophecy" they reference, she's just being a total bitch, but that's not even her character! She's just some bland female character that's trying to help you. She's not like a two-faced highly nuanced well written character where you could be like, oh look she's trying to screw with him here, NO she's just so inconceivably poorly written that it boggles my mind. This is like shit I used to write as a kid, but at least I had the decency to write those characters as obvious villains so their vague banter gave you an inkling that they were just fucking with you.

I should quickly discuss how bad the AI is, but in a way I think it's funny and adds to the game, but many would prefer smarter enemies so it goes in the bad section. The AI is INCREDIBLY stupid. There are times you get ambushed by melee only enemies and you can literally jump up on a box and they can't hurt you anymore. Borderlands knew you would do this and so all of their enemies that don't shoot can leap an infinite amount directly at you like a homing missile. But here...you can outsmart them in this pitifully stupid way.

Another way I outsmarted them was standing behind a barred off area. Their bullets are ones that are big and explode, so they don't go through this area, so I stood there and shot through it just fine, and this was a boss fight end sequence mind you. How did they fuck that up?

Lastly, in most cases you can run away and enemies will not follow you past a certain point, they'll just stand there. So you can lure them one at a time to this "checkpoint" type area they are programmed apparently to stop at. This has to do with the reviving system and set spawning points and Bungie wanting to ensure that if you die that there won't be enemies hovering over where you spawn and kill you again immediately. It has this bad side effect though of being able to manipulate the AI like this and abusing the system in many cases to remove the difficulty from the game. Again though, I've always liked finding this kind of stuff in games and it makes me chuckle so I really don't care, but it's clearly poorly made there's no disputing that.

Apart from the repetition, plot, AI, and not understanding what a loot system should be the only remaining faults of the game are minor at best. Bad loading times, god awful voice acting (Ghost (Peter Dinklage) sounds bored the entire time) and that's really about it.

Final Thoughts: 

Destiny is not a game for everyone. I can overlook it's faults as I understand what this game is trying to do and it mostly succeeds at that for me so I find it enjoyable to play. I want to be with this game for the long haul, get all the DLC, and eagerly await all the extra stuff they plan to do with this world. Because in the end this game is a platform for content, and hopefully some of that content will include different missions and unique gameplay. It has a very solid structure so it can only improve from here. Much like how small of a scope World of Warcraft was in its first year, so is Destiny, but that scope will expand as Activision is heavily investing in this game. That is good for fans of Destiny since we know for a fact they aren't giving up on the game. We know they put down $500 million for Bungie to continue to create content for the game and that's very exciting to me. So many of these games come out and die off with no promise of continuing, but here we have the exact opposite. We have the basis for a LOT of potential.

If you're like me and this gets you excited then by all means dive in. For gamers who prefer that 8 hour story with solid linear structure you might want to stay away. I personally am one of those gamers that prefers that 8 hour linear game 90% of the time, but lately I've also been looking for a game like this where I can turn my brain off. I never could get into something like World of Warcraft because the actual gameplay of it was so pitifully bad, but this is a solid FPS game and I'd much rather play this that requires a bit of skill and stamina than WoW that has zero skill to it. No monthly fees here either.

Is Destiny a good game? Well, it's an average game with a lot of potential that I believe will be realized with their investment, unlike most games that come out and they are final and can't be fixed. The story will probably always be bad though, but I believe Bungie will continue to give us reasons to play this game for a long time and I'm very happy about that because in the end, it is really fun to play.

*Haven't tried the PVP yet, but I will soon. I'm sure it's good though based on streams I've seen of it, though I doubt it's as good as Titanfall's PVP*

How the Gaming Media should Respond - Thunderf00t

I'd like this to be the last word on Anita Sarkeesian for this blog. It's not even my words, but it's not discussed better online. As previously mentioned, Thunderf00t is very good, and very descriptive at pointing out Anita's BS. But, in an interesting twist, he focused his latest video on the very topic I tackled, which is the gaming media's stunningly dumb coverage of her, and portrayal of others who were lambasted by the gaming media such as Jack Thompson and how they made a joke of him, but cried foul over Anita. Ironic given they both received death threats, yet the media came to Anita's defense...which Anita should hate because she shouldn't "need to be saved," given her own stance on how all games have women as plot devices to be saved....anyway, as usual  Thunderf00t hits the nail on the head here...and in an awful twist I also get to learn how indescribably stupid Joss Whedon is on this subject.

Please watch from beginning to end. If you've sat through a full video from Anita you can sit through this. If you are new to Thunderf00t he is an actual scientist who doesn't stand for made up garbage as he works really hard to actually test his hypothesis without having a biased conclusion prior to those tests...you know...real science.

NEXT blog will be about gaming I promise!

Open Letter - Anita Sarkeesian - Gaming Media

I never really wanted to formally address Anita Sarkeesian on this blog, I find her to be unworthy click-bait for outraged gamers. But IGN posted an article recently that caught my eye.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/02/hundreds-of-developers-are-fed-up-with-the-hate

Developers are asking the gaming community to stop being dicks basically. And, of course, I agree. It doesn't mention Anita specifically, but IGN does mention her as she is a lightning rod of hate in the gaming community.

Sure, no one deserves death threats like she's apparently getting (read my earlier blog about internet bullying), but websites like IGN and Joystiq and any gaming site out there does whatever they can it seems to post her picture or name on their gaming site for the sole purpose of attracting angry gamers to whine and complain about her. She's click-bait for them and they know it. What I'm tired of is not seeing any insightful op-eds on her from respected gaming sites. No one is critiquing her in the slightest, just posting her videos up and calling it a day.

My issue here is gaming websites like this are FUELING this hate by posting this stuff while not taking a stance one way or another on her opinions to open a respectful dialogue. It also doesn't help matters that Anita's stance on any issue is male = bad female = good but only if she's not acting very male. Her videos are filled with inaccuracies and outright lying too, which people rightfully call her on it. She closes her videos for comments which basically puts the ban-hammer on everyone too. It automatically gives the entire discussion a hateful atmosphere. Like someone claiming they are right and you are wrong AND a male chauvinist pig and then walking away. Of course, death threats go way too far as I mentioned, but when you're wrong about something on the internet, they let you know it and often go too far to let you know it.

I feel like the reason this boils over as much as it does for Anita is we don't have a face for the gamers countering her horribly contrived points. Thunderf00t on Youtube does a great job of breaking it down for us, but he's not really a gamer. In fact, in a follow up video he made after people in his comments made points about how she's flagrantly misrepresenting games like Hitman, he did some research looking up 12 let's plays of the game pointing out that the game doesn't "invite" gamers to kill helpless strippers like Anita says they do, but instead costs you points, and could ruin your mission entirely for doing such actions. You are encouraged to sneak by and avoid confrontation, but if you watch her video you'll think that boys will grow up thinking it's ok to choke out a stripper and put her in a box, despite the game only rewarding you for putting men in boxes, and punishing you for doing that to the strippers... But you won't see IGN defending developers on this or any other lie that Anita tells and instead they promote her.

This DOES enrage gamers. Sites like IGN and Gamespot have long tried to make gamers feel like they are "one of us" that we are all part of a larger community who love games and how much fun they are. Then someone like Anita comes in with what could have been an innocent and valid point that women aren't represented enough in gaming, and instead openly attacked the entire industry like it were run by sexist pigs, and we don't see a logical counter-point from our "fellow" gamers at IGN and Gamespot? But instead they fuel the fires further by shoving it in all our faces with their arms crossed? It's clearly just click-bait for them, and it has worked EVERY time they post something about her.

Then they closed the comments section on this article they posted due to the harsh negativity of it. I read through many of them, and as usual the majority seem to be well thought out, logical responses with a few hate filled messages peppered in. Frankly, it's MUCH less than what you'd see in a console war debate. The few ruin it for the many as usual. Honestly though, that action once again fuels these fires, closes off gamers for an open discussion and puts it further underground with Anita coming out on top and assisted by the likes of IGN whether they've intended that or not, that's how it comes off.

In the real world, people like this would get interviewed, and pressed about their stances. Gamers don't really have that either. When will IGN interview her, press her really hard on her points, call her out on her bullshit? Have a REAL talk about women in gaming and how we can address it rather than simply demonize the entire industry, fanbase, and anyone who ever stomped a goomba or saved a princess? No, that's not happening, they want to keep their click-bait happy for as long as possible because it's great revenue.

*For the sake of my soul I hope this too doesn't become click-bait*

EDIT: So, thankfully there is an outlet with sanity that I'd never heard of until someone on the Joystiq comments in an article of this very topic, brought it to our attention. I encourage anyone reading this to stop and read this instead, it makes the points I was going for but in a much less angry way and far more well put: http://techraptor.net/2014/08/29/witnessing-end-gamers/