How to spot an addict. PSN edition.

Mentioned pretty much everywhere including this blog is the downtime of Playstation Network. Even if you don't use the service you'd have had to be living a rock not to at least heard about it by now. I as well use PSN's service, and frankly have been amazed at the
immaturity of some of my fellow user base over this.

There has been many many threads of "discussion" over the downtime, to which I use the term loosely, as finger pointing, name calling, and general temper tantrums hardly constitute discussion. In all its looking very much like several of these people flipping out show the signs of withdrawal, much like an addiction.

People are having to come to grips with the fact their their second life they've built on this service is not immortal and now separated from it have been thrown back into cold dark reality, leaving them confused or frightened.
As said before on this blog, people put too much worth into something that's as fragile as glass and as worthless in the real world as a bag of shit. Many people are flipping out cause they are disconnected from their social clique (as they lack one in the real world) and they no longer can see their shiny achievement badges that make them feel special.

As I stated in the beginning of this post I am a PSN user, and stated before in the blog I am a trophy collector. How have I been fairing you likely wonder? I've been playing other games and/or going out and hanging out with my friends, cause while I enjoy collecting trophies its just a time waster, I feel no worth from them, yet so many have their whole lives wrapped up in these services which boggles my mind.

I share Shirakani's view of Sony deserved an attack on their systems. The attack may not have had the purest of intentions itself but it was well needed. So I'm happy to wait and do other things with my life while they fix their shit, and maybe (but unlikely) they may return with a degree of humility. This is what any level headed user is doing as well.

If PSN had this level of freak outs and withdrawal shakes. I say Facebook or Twitter needs to be next. I'd like to open the next day's news paper to a few thousand suicides. Lord knows we need the population decrease.

The (Vidya) Wasteland Survival Guide - Part 1

Its the year 2011.... The golden age of Genesis and Snes has long past, a new oppressive industry has come to power in the land of GameIndustri.  If you wish to survive, you will need help. Don't forget your guide.

In this series I will try to help people (that don't "demo" before they buy) save some money with general opinions about things they might be on the fence about. we'll be covering many topics over the course of this series. but today's topic.

DLC - Finding the Gems in the turd ocean

Like it or hate it. These days DLC is god damn everywhere, while most of them are crap there are a few gems out there. The ones covered ahead are to be some of the best "in my opinion" DLC out there to help consumers. Also to put it out there now, Age means nothing in this article, if its this gen and it was good. I am going to try to list it.

The grading scale will look somewhat like this.

Excellent
Exceptional
Good
Average
(if to goes past here its not really going to be listed, for this part of the DLC article anyway.)
Meh
Shit

Bioshock 2 - Minerva's Den

Price - $9.99
Overall - Excellent-Average (more on "average" below)
Availability - PS3/360/ "PC" (announced. but seriously don't hold your breath)

Quite simply put, this is what Bioshock 2 should have been, in this decent sized add-on, average of 3 hours if do the "take in the sights" aapproach along with replays on multiple difficulties, you play the role of Subject Sigma another of the first run big daddy series who has been recently liberated from its mind control (and apparently the sister bond, cause none of that bullshit from the main story need apply here).

You are sent to Minerva's Den, the central processing hub of Rapture and home to computers that pre-date the birth of computers on the surface, to find a still working transport sub that has a IFF to bypass Rapture's missile defenses and escape to surface with by Tenenbaum along with recovering the most advanced technology of Minerva's Den: The Thinker, a program algorithm so advanced that it can predict the future.

The Story and Pacing of MD is perfect, it also hosts a new plasmid type, Vortex, which is a blast to use if you pardon the pun. MD is a facinating place to explore, something new from Rapture, and fleshes out the city's lore even more. Lastly the plot throws a beautiful twist that I didn't see coming until only a few steps shy of when it happened, its nice when a twist is done WELL and not lame, its such a rarity these days.

The main game could have taken notes from this DLC in all seriousness, and such the main reason this has a -average rating and not straight excellent is the fact you have to own Bioshock 2 in all its turd glory to play this. Thankfully BS2 is cheap now days so if you can afford the few bucks or are a weird person and actually think BS2 wasn't inferior to BS in almost every way imaginable, grab this DLC or as I like to call it "BS2 - Off the Record"

Resident Evil 5 - Lost in Nightmares

Price - $9.99*
Overall - Exceptional
Availability- PS3/360
*(also pack in with Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition)

Ever wish for the old days of Resident evil? Where atmosphere mattered a lot more? Well while this DLC doesn't completely take you there, it tries its best to. And ends up delivering a better co-op challenge than even the base game, hows that for you?

Plot summery is this takes place before the events of resident evil 5 and are the direct events leading to Jill Valentine's "death" also in turn is a keystone event in the fall of umbrella arc as this is the fall of Oswell E. Spencer.

The game play itself is less "action-y" than RE5 itself. Focusing more on the survival and creepy atmosphere of the Spencer Estate (The estate itself has many nods to manor in RE1 as jokes). Ammo is scarce on higher difficulties, making what few enemies there are a actual threat instead of being a nuisance. The puzzles are pretty much all co-op oriented, and were more thought out than 5's making them more fun to do. The DLC ends on note that's weak (cause its very action oriented) and very cool at the same time cause of how its done. I don't wish to spoil too much. If you are a fan of actual horror RE instead of Dynasty Warriors: Zombies and guns edition. This is for you.

Also I want to give a honorable mention to the other RE5 DLC: Desperate Escape for being truly a challenging DLC on higher difficulties. but its not enough to warrant a whole separate review cause it did nothing special but be "RE5: another story".

Fallout 3 - Point Lookout

Price - $9.99*
Overall - Excellent
Availability- PS3/360
*(also pack in with Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition)



When we first heard the concept of DLC, people thought "expansion packs delivered cheaper for all", overall that hope has been dashed completely, but every once in awhile one delivers expansion pack level content. This is one of those times.

The main storyline for Point Lookout is not the meat of the game (only roughly 2-3 hours, unique gear at the end, standard FO3 fare) the meat is in its side quests and landscape, there are plenty of random things to check out, and plenty of loot for the Wasteland scavenger (I easily blew an additional 8 hours on screwing around in Point Lookouts surroundings) . However be warned! The denizens of Point Lookout are not for the faint of heart and will prove quite the challenge for the low level wanderer.

Challenge? check. Plenty to do? Check. LOOTZ!? double check. For a sandbox exploration rpg, this truly feels like the days of expansion packs again and was the gem that shined above the 3 other DLCs for FO3. I honestly wish I could say more, but being a sandbox game, the fun is what you make of it. So the its very much in the eye of the beholder here.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - The Da Vinci Dissappearance


Price - $9.99*
Overall - Good
Availability- PS3/360/PC
*(comes pack in free for PC)

Following the Animus events of ACB by two whole years in his respective story. This DLC puts you once again in the shoes of Ezio Auditore Da Firenze in the year 1506. Kidnapped by a group calling themselves the "Enlightened Ones" Leonardo Da Vinci has gone missing. It is up to Ezio to find where he has been taken and rescue him.

The Content of the DLC has good in some places, and lacking in others. It was rather "video game cliche" to have most of the content be fetch quests in the way of  "There are clues to where he might be hidden in 5 paintings he did, find these 5 artifacts paintings", but on the upside the actual quests to retrieve them are fairly entertaining and expose you to a lot of old friends from Ezio's life. The final segment in the DLC, The Temple of the Pythagoreans, was the best part in my opinion. The architecture and designs were beautiful.

My main complaints with this DLC are symbiotic. Universal to ACB, the difficulty is well stupidly easy. even for 100% sync on these missions you really wont break a sweat. Because of its ease it winds up being terribly short, 1 hour to clear maybe 2 hours to 100%. It also "extends" the global story of Desmond past the ending of ACB a bit, but in a cocktease, not really answering anything fashion. In all its not bad, and if you have $10 that you really don't want to keep a hold of for whatever reason, there are worse places to put it.

Borderlands - The Secret Armory of General Knoxx

Price - $9.99*
Overall - Exceptional
Availability- PS3/360/PC
*(also pack in with Borderlands Game of the Year Edition)

Taking place after the events of the main game. The Atlas corporation, not hearing what had happened with the Vault was in the best interests of all, and just generally for being dicks with sticks up their asses. send another crew to the dusty world of Pandora to secure full order of the planet and to bring the players in, dead or alive. The Atlas Corp., much like Fallout's Enclave, has the interests of the common man least dear to their heart yet sugar coat everything that they are fighting the good fight. One of their personal Assassins, Athena, has grown tired of their Bullshit and recruits the players in an effort to liberate Pandora from the hand of Atlas, forever. In return she promises you a share of their armory's loot considering it more than enough payment.

I had had a lot of fun in this DLC, it was by far my favorite of the 4 for this game (however do check out Claptrap's New Revolution and Island of Dr. Ned. as they are good too) my only two complaints was there's a lot of driving from place to place but that is negligible if you play multi player as it becomes fun there. The other complaint being that you can only loot the armory a total of 3 times legitimately, after that is beyond your reach, but if that's not to your taste there are glitches that can bypass this.

Other than that this addon was solid. The dark humor of Pandora bubbles up in General Knoxx, a character I found very enjoyable (fighting him not so much, I had shitty guns at the time) which brings me to another point. this game raises the level cap to 61 (71 with the free level patch from New Revolution) and while can be played straight from a new game, is not intended till post game, as it is hard. This also was the only addon that provided something I used to love from ps1 era games, an optional hard as hell boss. (your mileage may vary, it was mostly "hard" for me cause it requires teamwork and every partner I got lagged to hell and back). In all I highly recommend this one if enjoyed borderlands at all.

Bioshock - Comic Book Challenges

Price - $5.99
Overall - Good
Availability- PS3


Last but not least for this article I'd like to give an honorable mention to this DLC, for cashing in on something I wished the original Bioshock had done more of (and Bioshock 2 failed to try either) What it did is explore the puzzle aspects of the plasmids a lot more, throwing you in scenarios that force you to think more whereas the base game was a lot more action oriented.

There are 3 Scenarios:

Chamber Of Thrills - you must use your powers cleaverly and slay a big daddy without weapons.
Wheel of Terror - The little sister is trapped atop the half broken Fairish Wheel, how will you get her down?
Worlds of hurt - Chamber after chamber. progress how you choose. can you reach the end?

The former two are well thought out. the last one ends up an action fest and ends up no thinking unless you try the "wrench + plasmids only" run, then its hard. the downside really to this DLC is it leaves you wishing for more. Even with the time challenges and rose hunts these are not very long. I would have loved the whole game been like this.


That brings this chapter to a close. I'll update again when I have more content. take care.

Old vs New

Greetings. Been while since I last posted. Between classwork and becoming a streamer at our affiliates Casualbros, I've not been writing much, and I apologize for that. However my streams did bring up a good topic to expand on because of what I had been streaming.

That of which. is old games.

I've been streaming several old games. From my ongoing Silent Hill series, to a heavily modded Oblivion, to even NES games, And it begs the question as well as its been asked once or twice "why not something more recent?"

Why not indeed. Its going to sound extremely "googles" for me to say some of these things but I am going to anyway. Its because these games never feel like a chore to play. These old games. cause they are complete and untainted, its never wearing on my conscious if I should be enjoying them. Modern games I truly feel guilty any time I find any enjoyment in them, cause what they are vessels for, usually the latest scam attempting to become market commonplace. Its a moral conflict as an adult,  "do I just blindly accept these horrible changes and mindlessly enjoy the games like so many do? Or do I try to change things for the better and try to stop these scam vessels from gaining ground?" and it depresses me to think how we got here. Because with games of old I didn't have to make this choice. The games were just "games" as it should be.

So it comes to no surprise that I go back to old games and modding old games to keep them fresh rather than play new. I know this is becoming very tired/blue in the face on this blog, but the thing stopping modern game from being good is the fact is their modern games. Those AAA+ 4star "Brollywood" production budgets that deem the game a failure if it didn't sell over 5 million games, everything wrong with gaming today. I personally long for the day gaming leaves the mainstream eye again, but that will likely never happen, or at least not without some massive changes.

Regardless I sit back in my chair, much like a angry grandfather in his rocker, and reminisce about times of old. However its not all negative, amazingly from my streams I've found many support my views about the direction the market is going, gives me some hope. And if you ever wish to join these discussions first hand. be sure to visit sometimes.

Holiday Woes and Joys

First off I hope everyone out there is enjoying their holidays. Been pretty decent here, got to see my sister and nephews, pigged out on plenty of holiday feasts, been genuinely good. Now its a time for a run down of holiday gaming.

The Good: Steam Christmas sales are in full swing, this being the first one I've ever partaken in, I feel I am like a small child again buying all these massive numbers of games for cheap. To those that never have been around for a steam year end sale, it honestly is incredible. quite literally over a thousand games all for %ages off to same degree, many to the point of "absolute steal". I've already scored many games I've been meaning to pick up due in part to these sales.  Of course there were some absolute fails I skipped too. (Assassins Creed for $15. honestly a good buy, BUT I remembered that it would have the same shitty DRM as 1. and that makes it not worth even .50$)

The Bad: How am I not surprised the bad would come from a console yet again. I bought Borderlands GOTY ed. on whim only to get it in the mail and read the cover to receive a very disappointing shock.

"Voucher for all 4 dlcs included"

This was partly my fault, I should have read closer, but come the fuck on, a Voucher!? Why did you think I held off buying this game in the first place Gearbox? Cause I quite frankly wanted digital backup of the game with everything included, so in case say I need to grab them and PSN happens to be down (or even more likely, I decide to get the game back out in around 5 years and PSN support for the game has already been pulled/shelved) I can just pop in the disk and install them.

I know the logic for this, "Vouchers can't end up on a used game shelf." well frankly to that I say "fuck you". Just cause you want to curb used game sale, everyone, including those that never-very rarely have ever traded in games, get to suffer. This is NOT how you do it guys, be prepared to just piss off more gamers.

Are they even trying?

Being American (hey don't hate me, I didn't want to be born here either) and it being November, my thoughts as any good American turn to Thanksgiving and of course even further to Black Friday, the special day of the year where you can score deals on so many things that over half of the cumulative sales for all American retail for the year are made on that day alone.

Now Video games don't usually do HUGE savings like other products on Black Friday, but they still do try to at least entice a bit usually, so I was keeping an eye on gaming retailers for anything interesting. The biggest one being watched, like them or hate the, of course was Game Stop.

Well finally their ad was leaked and I don't know about you but, unless you like Sports games it was extremely lackluster. Even COLLODOOTY people got nothing for them in this sale. Which bares to me the thought "are they even trying?" or did they just slap together a shitty sale just to make sure people can't say they didn't have one?

One thing is for sure, GameSTOOP doesn't get any money from me this year, and I actually am quite happy with that. They are a horrible company with industry ties and the less money I give them the better. This ended up less an article more a rant but maybe yet amazon or steam may redeem this pretty poor showing for Black Friday goers, I'll try to keep readers posted.

Steam is "causing the death of PC gaming"

There are articles as of late false propaganda being spread as of late by retailers that steam is causing the death of PC gaming. Here, here, and here to cite a few. The claim is that steam has a monopoly on PC gaming and it will usher in the collapse of the market.

Do you remember a time when pc games at brick and mortar stores were more than one shelf stuffed in the back?

Do you remember when they tried to stock the latest and best pc games always?

Do you remember when they bothered to price their pc games fairly according to age and popularity?

I can only answer yes to the first one myself and even then that time was so far back its really reaching into my memory for it. Truth of the matter is this, the gaming industry wanted pc gaming to die along time ago, they seriously tried to kill it.


"But why would they do such a thing?" you ask. Simple. PC gaming, unlike consoles, has freedom.

• There are communities, large ones, that can mod the game freely, adding days/weeks/months of playtime onto a game. Companies didn't like this one bit, if you are still playing X game even months later how are they going to make you shell out $60-100 every 3 months for their games?

• Full blown piracy exists on the pc. If something is unfair or overpriced, people just steal it. A guy who charges $50 a bottle of water in the desert will get robbed. The open piracy forces companies to be competitive and honest, and they don't like that one bit.

• PC gamers, not trying to start a flame war or insult people, but seriously are generally more educated. they can sort deals from scams, and can patiently wait a market out. Well how is a company supposed to scam earn record profits when dealing with people like that?

back in the late 90's to early 00's anyone that was a PC gamer saw the rapid decline of their medium being sold in stores, they were pissed but they couldn't do much about it. It was at this time consoles got a lot of strength in the market. But anyone smart knows consoles are very restrictive and controlled (especially current gen). Want that cool fan mod you see for the PC version on your console? Forget it. Want to use trainers to get through the game fast cause you just don't have the time but yet want to see the story? good luck.

If anything steam was what saved the PC industry from dying and companies do not like that one bit. So do not believe the lies retailers are spewing about steam killing the PC industry. If you want a more accurate headline here's one.

Steam hurts our console game sales so we can only afford one Ferrari this year instead of two, BAWWWWWWW.

The New Face of Advertising; YOU

Now I've never been one to play EA's Need for Speed series, so if not for a friend that does this little nasty new development may have slipped by my sights. He was playing the legitimate demo and soon ran across this and sent me a pic, followed by many wtfs, and the like.

Seriously EA? Are you god damn serious? So to even get to play all of what should be used to "entice me to like the game" I have have to advertise it like a virus for you? Whelp I know what game I'll never buy, and such applies to any other games that do this in the future. This is seriously a new low, but to be quite honest I am not all that surprised.

After all game companies have spent years creating a private army that would defend them to the death in the use of Achievements/Trophies/New Hats. This just seems to me more as a test/cash on that investment. I mean if they can get some stupid joe average to advertise for them, why wouldn't they? All I know is that this will end up driving the rift in the gaming culture even wider, but then, is that so bad? Let the fire and brimstone come, maybe then we can see a reset to the industry that is so desperately needed.

Review - Dead Rising 2

"Ex motocross racer Chuck Greene has been framed for an outbreak he didn't start here in Las Vegas Fortune City and has 72 hours to clear his name before military clean up crew arrives. What would you do with 72hrs
in hell?"

As someone that has played both Dead Rising entries this review is going to reflect that.


Graphics: 15%

Everything we've come to expect really of this generation in graphics. Game looks great and crisp, but it does however lose some points because of one thing. Very obvious frame drops in certain situations, one of the most obvious being using any weapon with particle effects (like say the flame sword combo weapon) on the day with gas leaking everywhere. Should be noted this was the ps3 version and your results may very depending on the one you play, I just cannot be fucked to play it on 3 systems.

Sound: 15%

No inherent problems with the sound you'd notice, everything sounds good on both music and Sound effect level, and I didn't run into any deformed sounds/hang up noise in my time playing. As well the voice acting is fine and fits the game for most instances. I do have one gripe however. A lot of the sound is recycled from Dead Rising 1, which isn't a HUGE issue since well its from the same game series, it still sorta takes away from the game a bit.

Controls and Gameplay: 20%

Two words: Fucking. Fun. Killing zombies is very easy and fluid, if you struggle at this game really.... quit video games... na I am kidding, but really if you struggle just think about what you are fighting a bit harder/come more prepared, game is really not that hard. Chuck is very user friendly.

DR2 introduces the combo system in which Chuck, who acts like Macgyver with his duct tape. can combine a variety of items to make new weapons to use on psychopaths or the zombie hoarde. Some of these combinations are complete lulz and bullshit (example: gems + flashlight = light saber) which only adds to the over the top antics of the game.

If just endlessly slaying zombies isn't your goal in life, there is a lengthy main story you can pursue and survivors you can rescue. There are also psychopaths, former Fortune City residents that couldn't handle the zombie outbreak and went insane, to fight.

Length and Replayability: 10%

The main game is long, and supports co-op. If you and a friend enjoy slaying the zombie horde, this will occupy you for some time, even better it supports drop in/drop out co-op, a really good decision on capcom's part in my opinion, allowing people to come and go as they please/have the time to play. It does however lose points on a couple of, what I think, were poor decisions.

No Infinite/survival mode: DR1 had a mode that after you cleared the main story, you could play endlessly with no objectives before you other than to survive. this would have been PERFECT for a co-op concept in DR2. but alas through some sort of near sighted choice this is not available in DR2... hope who ever made that choice got fired.

TIR Online: Seriously? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!? I mean its a fun little set of minigames that I don't mind playing time to time... then they go and make TIR the main source of gathering money for the main game, there are other methods yes, but they are just as boring as TIR and they even hide unlockables in TIR...
if their was any instance of "trying to force people to Multiplayer" this would be a good example.


What I paid: 20%

I personally got the PS3 version on a special deal for $30, so I made out well. But to those that cannot do that, get the PC version for $40. in all its not above the "costs way too much" threshold of $50-60

Base Score: 80% of 100%

Now here is the fun part. DR is a Capcom series, and Capcom has been proving to be quite the assholes to their "fans" as of late. DR2 is not free from this corruption.

Case Zero, A special "prequal" to DR2, explains the events leading up to what makes Chuck Greene the way he is. This is currently exclusive to 360 owners. And regardless if it ever comes to us later....

THIS NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED

Christ... its like they WANT people to hate them. Cause sorry if their plot is to make you buy on one system over the other from this "EGGZCLUSIV" product, it doesn't work for all of us. The ones that are not sheep just see you as douche bags and more and more justified to steal whatever you held from them. Case West is comming soon and I expect more dickery with that one.

Published by major publisher (-5%)
Contains DLC (Disc Locked Content) (-20%)
Contains 'day one' DLC (-5%)
Contains Withheld content (-10%)

Adjusted score: 40% of 100%

Final words: Yikes quite a painful adjustment there wasn't it Capcom? Maybe you need to do some things differently?

In Depth on DLC

Being our blog's main namesake and hate I figured it would not hurt to summerize why its the greatest evil in gaming to date.


1. Content that is Withheld: Yep I can already hear the naysayers on this one. "YOU DON'T KNOW IT WAS WITHHELD, STFU." and you don't know that it wasn't, and going simply by presentation it doesn't look good in their favor that might not have been withheld.
Some examples:

• Assassins Creed 2 PC: The Game Data itself at launch had a folder Named "dlc" which contained the tie in data for Sequence 12 and 13 along with the other small dlcs. AT LAUNCH it had this. Meaning it could have came to us at launch but was chosen to be cut out, continuing on this.
• Assassins Creed 2: Campaign with Obviously missing levels and makes a very large point to tell you they are missing. Sequence 12 and 13 are "damaged" in the story, and once you pay your "I want a complete game" tax they are repaired. There are other games but this was the one the most blatant showings of cut content to make more money.
  
• Dead Rising 1 and Resident Evil 5: Wait that DLC is only 100kb to dl? wow that's some good coding for a new outfit or game play mode to only take up 100k of space. BUZZ WRONG! what you are downloading there is essentially a unlocking key to gain access to data ALREADY ON THE DISK. Companies have learned from this mistake and keep the content off the disk now to try and keep the "illusion" it is new.
  
• Dragon Age: "Hi I am a Npc that on a game straight from LAUNCH! follow you around anytime you are in town and try to sell you a special quest that wasn't cut from the game to make more money I swear!" This was a new low Bioware, not only do you cut content from a game to make it less than whole, then you put in a character that FOLLOWS YOU AROUND in town to constantly rub it in that you as a customer got less for your money again.

2. "Its not an expansion! its DLC!" Which is why we get times less for our $20-40 than we used to. Does anyone remember expansion packs? They costed anywhere from $20-40 and got you sometimes as much as the original game in new content to enjoy, now days? That $20 will get you a map pack, or 4 color/costume changes for your character! WHAT A BARGIN! I do find it very hilarious when they try to sell me a fucking palette swap acting like it was "alot of work".

3. Separation of the player base.

"sorry I can't play with you, don't got the new map pack."
"we can still play older maps."
"no, we can't"
"what?"
"Just owning that pack puts you in a new classification as far as the server is concerned, we cannot play"

Thankfully this one I am seeing alot less, we are slowly winning the battle on this front, mostly due to the fact that the PR damage is disastrous. People couldn't play togather at all if one had the DLC and others didn't. This is getting resolved slowly by "compatibility packs" or "only one person now needs the DLC" the fact of the matter is it never should have happened and they'd love for us to forget that they tried to fuck us over, so that we happily keep lapping up the shit they put in a doggy dish.

Remember folks There are people out there that would like to make you pay ontop of your original payment to see the ending to a game. That IS their plan, and DLC is a stepping stone on that plan. In all you must

(To finish this article please download our add-on pack here. Its only $5 and your contribution will be well appreciated.)

Nobody is safe

As Posted in an earlier article Item mall is the bane to good games.
An Australian acquaintance of mine who is a notorious Valve loyal, particularly Team fortress 2
(no seriously I think the guy even would own a Heavy dakimakura if it were possible).
pointed out this latest update for his game and didn't understand the hate surrounding it.

I told him its not the initial update that is the problem, just some cosmetics? fine, there is no real problem if you REALLY want to have X look by paying some minute money. however of course it did not end there.

I soon learned from a few other people who play the game and frequent the chat room that there were items you could buy that gave STAT BONUSES for real money.

IT BEGINS

I'm very much happy that I never put much faith in Valve like many others have, I simply watched from the sidelines waiting for them to make their move, and now they have. Will they unleash unholy, hobby killing, evil the likes of Activision has seen? That I doubt, but they most certainly are no longer pure. As one that doesn't play TF2 as well this doesn't directly affect me, but I am also intelligent enough to realize that it COULD effect me someday, in some game down the road.

Those don't seem to get it through their heads, you buy, the precedence is set. Voting with your wallet only works at the very beginning instance, if the tactic succeeds once, it will have to fail 10 times over before it gets undone from being a market norm. This is why nearly every game has withheld content and now many have cash shops and nearly no single player experience.

The Politically Correct "false" movement

This Article today made me quite irritated. For those not in the know, allow me to fill you in.

EA with their Medal of Honor series, which I don't play nor normally have an interest in, decided on their latest installment to controversially allow in their game to let you play as the Taliban as one of the factions for death match. Now in my home country of burning any book that isn't the Bible and fucking apple pies, this did not go over well. Interest groups, and by interest I mean nobody's but their own, decided that was "improper" and moved to silence that.

EA stuck to their guns for a while and refused to change, which I respected them for, but in the end likely out fear the game wouldn't sell cause of all the negative PR these idiots were generating, gave in and changed them from "Taliban" to "Opposing Force".

Yep. you heard me right. All that was changed was the name.

They are still terrorists, they still look as stereotype as you can get, but they aren't "Taliban" so everything is sunshine and roses for these people I've dubbed "The people with too much time on their hands". These people, since they have no lives or shit to do, feel that in their infinite spare time think they need to tell the other 99.8% of the world what is right and proper. Going to give you a small hint here.

Most "intelligent" people don't want to view the world through tinted windows, especially in something as harmless as a game. Something that fails me completely is how these idiots thought this was going to be harmful in anyway, I mean I hate ALL forms of censorship, but I can understand why people manipulate with it if there is something to gain from it. So what could possibly been gained here? Nothing is what. It is not like the game glorified the terrorists or something, so once again its a pointless censorship and wasted energy that could have have been directed somewhere else my fellow braindead Americans.

But I know none of this is reaching the people that need to hear it, and if it were to, they'd deny or shift blame, cause that is what their kind is best at, being childish and never doing anything good for this world, instead they shit it up for others.

Final word is this. I had no intent on ever playing this game but I still liked that someone was going to try to have something out there that on at least some levels not spoken through a filter.
But cause of the "Paranoid Parents Association" which includes 60 year old bible thumpers, soccer moms who have to release the extra energy from the speed they consumed to keep up with their over active, nosy lives and politicians who love shit like this cause it provides a nice distraction from them passing bills that fuck you out of ever retiring and lining their pockets with your former pension money, we can't even have that.

Thank you again PPA for saving us when we didn't need or want to be saved.

On Trophies and Achievements

Gaming is quite a unpredictable thing. Things that should have been completely harmless become some of the biggest problems with gaming to date, and its all because of the Human element.

Achivements when they first debuted, really were harmless in my eyes, they were just one more thing you could do with your game and they gave you a external rating that showed what you've played and what you "accomplished". No harm with this when taken in moderation.

But humans do not know moderation.

It really was not long before people started gauging their own self worth as a gamer by their score and playing games they didn't like for the pure sake of increasing their "worth score". As now we come to the problem we have today.

I am going to give you a hint. Having that gamer score of 500000 is not going to get that cute chick working at the corner 7/11 you've been eyeballing for months to suddenly want your cock. nobody cares about your score BUT YOU.

Well ok. I lie a bit. Some gamers may look at your trophies and achievements a bit, but I can with absolute certainty assure you that they don't care about your "overall e-penis length" I'll use me for an example. when I look at someone's trophies I am looking at two things really.

- What they play on average, to get a generalization of their gaming preferences.
- CERTAIN achievements which I think are REAL ones. (getting "Mr perfect" in mega man 9 is a REAL feat. pausing the game in the Simpsons Road Rage is not)

If anything, those that "grind" gamerscore/trophy level on stupid games? all you show to us is how worthless a human being you are. Your 6 platinums all in Disney games do not impress anyone. Your youtube channel that shows your "gallery of trophies" just shows you REALLY need laid.

To the Achivement/trophy whores of the world. You should really make this your next one.

On the Subject of F2P Games and Microtransactions

A few years back I was sitting at the computer bull shiting with a friend on what we could play togather, being whole continents apart the amount of things we can play are very limited. For while we tried "free to play mmos" because it was something we all could run, worked fun over long distances (ie latancy doesn't really hurt a non realtime game as badly) and once more we THOUGHT it would be cheap to play.

Boy were we ever wrong.

Over the years we played many "Free to play" games.

Trickster Online
Pangya
Grandchase
Atlantica Online

And all of them disappointed, but not in the way you'd expect. The games themselves were very fun and engaging. confused? What could possibly be wrong you ask? well the problem was quite simple. There never was never an end to the spending you were required to get the full game out of a "free game".

Starting with the first game we played, Trickster Online. the game was innocent enough at first. cash only got you some grinding boosts and better drills. (The gimmick of trickster was you could drill anywhere for resources to help your game) nothing too bad, then refining came in where you could quite literally gamble your gear to make it more powerful. now the feature was free to use, but it costed money if it fucked up. sounds fair right? and in the beginning it was, then slowly people noted he failed more and more often. The company in charge of the game dismissed that this was all in people's heads, but it was very obvious they had changed the formula to be very unfavorable so that could gain more money.

Around the same time also the first "GACHA" game launched. similar to Gashapon a person could turn real money into coins they popped into a mini game for unique gear and pets. at first there was no problem with this, all it got you was a unique look. as time went on however only the best stat gear was found in these towns, and content was tailored that unless you wear these items, you would NOT survive.

Back with Trickster I was foolish enough to defend this fuckery. Saying very tired lines like "the game needs to make money or the servers will not be able to operate" or "takes some to get some." but really looking back now that was just foolish elitist talk and I helped companies be told "This is completely ok, continue to rape my wallet please."

Fast forward to my final F2P mmo, Atlantica Online. When I joined at first it was the same formula as before at first their Item mall did nothing harmfull, it was only money for fluff. And the game truely rewarded skilled people in the fact they could save money by playing better. I thought to myself "have the companies learned? maybe the dark age has ended."


I should have known better, around 4 months later, the same trends formed, and even worse skill became completely mooted. Being skilled at the game ended up netting you very little in favor of people just buying everything they needed with cash. However if you don't realize the problem with this yet let me enlighten you.

"Why are you "playing" the game then?"

The general concept of a mmo is to get good gear so you can survive in a higher area to get better gear, repeat the process x 9001. If you can just get the gear guess what? You sit there looking like an idiot cause you've just removed all point to be playing. Which is exactly the route Atlantica went and to be quite honest, the route of all "Fee to play" or "pay to win" mmos go. They become very expensive babysitters rather than real games.

Now I personally think if you are going to play a mmo these days. stick to a pay to play mmo, at least they are honest up front about wanting your money. Also.... to be sickeningly honest a Pay mmo is actually CHEAPER than a "free" mmo in the long run if you want your content :/

Another good option is a business model similar to Dungeons and Dragons online. it does free to play but to get the full game you must subscribe. so it becomes "free 2 demo" which is in its own way fine, cause it lets you still try the game before having to pay in, and is still completely honest about "you wont get anywhere without paying"

Best option however is to find pay once multi player games. Support games like Guild Wars, Diablo and others of its buisness model. You pay once and are done. and you alone decide when the fun ends. not someone else.