Tag: gaming

The Rise of the Digital Only Gaming World – Opinion

While a lot of people are buying into and even applauding the all digital marketplace that gaming is starting to go into not everyone is so thrilled. From consumer rights, to historical archiving, and more there are tons of drawbacks to what is being thrust upon us that don’t like what is coming in the entertainment world.

Consumer rights. People hear that phrase a lot in political and legal spheres but I don’t think it gets as much attention as it should for a lot of different reasons. The main reason being just lazy. It’s more convenient to be able to pull up a music streaming service, a streaming gaming service, tv/movie streaming service or to buy digital and then just access it without having to get up and switch a disc of some kind plus you save on space in your dwelling and usually a little savings in your pocket book. However, going digital gives over a HUGE portion of your consumer rights. Go read the fine print in whatever digital platform you buy a game, movie, or tv show season on. We all know that when streaming we lose access when we stop paying or if the contract for the intellectual property (From here out known as IP) expires. Most people don’t realize that when you BUY a digital copy of whatever entertainment item you get you are considered to be paying for a long term LEASE of the item. The owner of the IP continues to retain the right to revoke access to what you paid for without having to state a reason for it nor giving your money back. That’s right! You bought something but it isn’t actually yours to keep! Since it is also the age of the always on internet those same companies can go in and alter the product whenever they like. Taking out content, or changing scenes as they wish so that the original item you paid for no longer exists as you know it. If you buy a physical copy this is harder for them to do though not impossible. Also, with the always on internet gaming companies no longer put the whole game on the discs which means that even if you try and game without their input on something you paid for you can’t use it as it was in the past. Back before we as consumers started giving ground to the corporations and also demanding faster turn around on game releases it used to be that the whole game was in the cartridge or on the discs without needing release day updates/patches, or to download the rest of the actual title. This meant that a game sank or swam on it’s own. On one hand we wouldn’t have No Man’s Sky, Days Gone, or numerous other titles today be ultimately successful without the developers being able to fix their mistakes through the internet. But, we also wouldn’t be having the issues with consumer rights either. A happy medium would be for the entire game to be on discs even if it meant three or four discs for installs like happened in the past and then if there were glaring issues the patches and such could happen as needed. This allows for consumer rights to be respected, disadvantaged people with bad internet to not need to wait sometimes a day or two for a download, and the developers can still fix things as needed. There can still be DLC since that isn’t a needed part of a base game, etc. I myself am someone that insists on buying a physical copy of titles. I am growing frustrated with companies doing digital only releases however. The two that effect me the most currently are Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2.

I’m poor. So most of the time I have to wait on buying the next big title that I want to play. I use my local public library as a stop gap so that I can at least play it a little bit before I am able to buy it. The developers get their money because the library will buy multiple copies of a title that has a high demand…. but if the title is released digital only this is not possible anymore. This digital only future is going to turn gaming into a no poor people allowed zone again like it was in the beginning. Yes, I know that there are streaming services like Xbox Game Pass, etc. that people can pay for, but again, they won’t own anything but the console, tv, or pc that they are gaming on. They will also only have access to the title as long as it is allowed to stay in the streaming service library. I know for a fact that Xbox rotates things on and off. The cloud streaming for gaming is also still an iffy option especially if you are poor with budget level internet.

The developers state that it saves time and money to do a digital only release. If this was true then the titles would be cheaper coming out that way as well.. however, there has been no drop in price. In fact there has been an at least ten dollar increase in pricing almost across the board for bigger indie titles as well as triple A ones. On top of that the “Collector’s” or “Gold” editions have for the most part stopped having any physical items included with them unless you want to pay for the “Collector’s” stuff AND buy the base game separately in some cases. It made sense for them to charge one hundred dollars or more for a Collector’s edition when you got statues, maps, dice, etc. along with the physical game disc. Now they want to charge the same amount WITHOUT the physical extras and also without the physical discs with cases. If you know anything about the world of manufacturing then you know that game publishers are able to have things made in bulk at a discounted rate. If they aren’t confident in the game sales they can short the stock and then have more made if the demand is there. The problem is that a lot of games that they predicted as smash hits have bombed. They no longer trust the consumer to pay for what they are putting out. So, instead of I don’t know changing what they put out to please the consumer and improve the sales margins they decide to stay the course but lower their losses by going digital. This allows them to keep more of the money with less risk to them. It is however not good for the consumer since they get no benefits from it other than not having to swap discs. Being lazy is not a reward nor is it rewarding. I do realize that there are disabled gamers out there where not having to swap discs is a huge bonus for them. I’m not advocating for the complete abolishment of the digital marketplace. I am advocating for the games to be complete in both the digital and the physical world. For the gaming market to become consumer friendly once more.

There are gaming museums and/or gaming historical archives popping up here in the United States. Their mission is to catalogue as much of the history of gaming by having copies of as many titles as they can from the original Pong going forward. There are games that have been lost to time because the original source code, cartridge, etc. have been destroyed or lost. Companies are reluctant to give copies of the source code, games, artwork, etc. to these museums and archives because of the fear of the IP being misused or distributed illegally. Going all digital like they are pushing will make even harder for museums and the archives to catalogue gaming history going forward.

It really does confuse and frighten me a little that most of the same people that talk about how greedy corporations are that then these same people are trusting them to continue to allow access to things we pay for digitally. It’s either one or the other. We can either trust corporations to be nice to consumers or we can realize that we are nothing but numbers on a spread sheet for them and fight them for continued good treatment by getting guarantees that protect our rights without having to do class action lawsuits in the future to correct things. A good rule of thumb is that if you can’t download it to store offline or play it offline then you don’t really own it. As of the time of this writing the only digital only things that all me to completely download and do whatever I want with them are music mp3s and games that I buy from GOG. Everywhere else that I have knowledge of currently doesn’t allow for it… and that is a scary future for consumer rights.

Final Fantasy XVI – A Review

I am first going to talk about the things I liked in the game before I get to what made me ultimately quit and move on to other titles in my backlog.

The graphics are fantastic. The battle system is great and I liked that they added in accessories that allowed for simplicity instead of having to worry about memorizing all the different button combinations. The story in the beginning is great and I really got into disliking the mother for how she was treating her sons and manipulating her husband. I also loved that there was at least one Moogle.

Now, onto the dislikes. Please keep in mind that this is opinion.

The story gets complicated and branches off in a super weird way that is never explained in a way that satisfied me and doesn’t fit within any of the Final Fantasy mythos that I’ve experienced through either watching others play or playing myself.

The game play is chopped up into segments instead of being an open world like the previous title was. As such having a Chocobo was useless except in a couple of places since you fast traveled to the “main” area of the quest you were on and then could further fast travel within those smaller maps.

There are TONS of cut scenes and a lot of them feel unneeded when a simple conversation while standing next to the character you were talking to would have worked just as well.

Also, there isn’t a lot of explanation on hand in the beginning of the storyline to show things like the illness that magic causes… Clive never sees anyone dying of it or inflicted with it until much much later in the game so the player doesn’t know it is a thing even though all the characters act like it was always an issue. Also, it bugged me that they labelled the Phoenix as fire instead of healing AND that despite Joshua being the embodiment of it he was always sick… Also, unless you know the mythos of the bird in question his survival after the beat down he got.. and his appearance in the “past” doesn’t make sense.

Finally, I quit the game out of frustration and boredom. I really loved Final Fantasy XV. It is the first and only Final Fantasy to date that I bought and finished all the way through. I even bought all the DLCs for it, the collector’s game guide, AND the soundtrack. The changes that Square Enix had wrought made the game fun and engaging to me while in this latest installment feels over all like it went backwards. Once I quit Final Fantasy XVI I looked up the rest of the story and I am so glad I quit instead of forcing myself to see it through. A world without magic? In a Final Fantasy game? You know the fantasy genre requires mystical/magical mythos yes? So this game is a bubble in and of itself. That is unless they’ve decided to turn the series into a plain fiction setting and they are going to change the title going forward… then again it is rare that despite the numbering and shared title that the story lines actually work within the same world or origin. I should have stuck with boycotting it like I was going to when I found out that it wasn’t a continuation of the storyline from XV.

I do not recommend this title at all. We will see if they fix it in the next one.

Game Review: Saints Row (2022)

I am a big fan of the Saints Row franchise. I’ve been playing since the first one came out on the Xbox 360. It started off as a GTA clone but eventually established it’s own voice in the genre. The game story lines got bigger, more campy, and crazy as the series went on eventually getting to Ruler of the Universe and Time Traveler level of hilarity.

I decided to pre-order the Notorious Edition of the new Saints Row. I sat down and played it for hours last night.

The devs decided to reboot the franchise this year with Saints Row. Set in a completely new setting that reminds me of Las Vegas called Santo Ileso. As always you play as The Boss, but, in this one the Saints don’t exist yet. You and your roommates decide after some things go down (trying to avoid heavy spoilers) to start your own criminal enterprise… The Saints.

The story flow so far is slow. They made some of the game mechanics and features only unlockable through the story line instead of it just being there in the game already. Side jobs (side hustles) start off as only a few different types but expand as you play the game. Hidden collectables, dumpster diving, and the Wanted list are also there for distraction. Just like Saints Row 3 and forward you can collect vehicles as well by jacking them and taking them to your garage. There are hours and hours of things to do outside of the main story line.

I don’t like the healing method they are using in the game. In the old ones you got health pickups from killing the enemies. In this one you get one health boost (it doesn’t heal you completely) every so often. Even if you kill a lot of enemies it still takes longer than I would like to get ready, killing speeds up the timer, it can lead to some really frustrating game play where you are literally running and dodging around in circles just to keep alive while waiting for it to pop. Oh, and the default difficulty level is good for co-op. Not so good for solo because trying to aim the guns is frustrating as heck. It auto aims for the body and then fights you if you try to aim anywhere else which makes being accurate super hard. I looked in the settings and couldn’t find anything to tone down or turn this feature off. I would be aiming down sights and it would bounce from one side of the enemies head to the other at a nudge from the stick even if I wasn’t firing.

Co-op at the time of this blog is broken. My buddy and I ended up at a point right in the beginning section that just wouldn’t move forward. We tried it twice before giving up and completing it solo before teaming back up. We can’t see each other when we aren’t right next to each other because we aren’t highlighted in world for the other player. I can’t see him on the map at all to pin point his location if we decided to go explore different locations. Later on in the story line he was forcibly disconnected from me by the game right before a cut scene. This caused the game to almost freeze to the point that I thought I was going to have to close it all the way out and come back in. Then once the cut scene finally played through the game wouldn’t let him reconnect. After this we decided to solo play until the co-op is fixed. This feature being broken at launch when it was being sold as key to the game is frustrating. It also reminds me of Dying Light 2 which is not a good thing. My friend and I go out of our way to buy titles that we can play online together because that is the only time we get to hang out with each other even though we live in the same city.

Over all if you like the Saint Row franchise you will love this game… clarification. If you love the original game and the second one the most of all the titles then you will love this one. The story line is more toned down even with the comedy involved in it.

No poor allowed – Opinion

I recently saw the announced price tag for the new generation of consoles. I’m a Playstation gamer when it comes to consoles. With the new prices and then the slowly creeping in $70 USD price tag on games that are coming out for PS5. I am slowly realizing that gaming is becoming a rich persons hobby kind of like golf, boating, etc. Consoles used to be the cheaper way for gamers to gain access to all the new titles coming out because having a PC is even pricer than a console. This is still true even in the new price arena. This is why I have come to the opinion that I have had.

Gaming companies be they console manufactures or game developers have lost touch with the lower end income markets. Long term this is going to cause a drop in their overall profits. There are a lot of people already that struggle to get one or two new games a year at the prices they currently sell for. I know that I can’t afford the new console and I would struggle to pay $70 dollars for a new title. This means that a lot of people, myself included, are going to have to wait for used versions of everything instead. Like I said it’s going to eat into profits for the makers. See the makers of games/consoles already greatly dislike the used market. They get very little if any of the profits from resale so they’d like to get rid of it. It’s one of the reasons they are pushing so hard for all digital. Then they have total control of how the consumer uses the games. In fact if you go into the small print on a digital purchase it actually says that you are paying a one time payment to LEASE the game. At anytime that they want to they can block access to redownload or even log into the game. It’s the same kind of small print on digital movie and tv show purchases.

Digital releases aren’t discounted even though there are no manufacturing costs involved with a digital version.

They are normalizing the takeover of consumer rights.

On top of this they are raising the prices of everything that can be used to game to a level that is going to become out of reach for most people unless they are married with an above minimum wage job with no children. Or higher income with children. I’ve been known on here as well is in person to get on a soap box about this kind of topic a lot. The price for a game, console, movie, etc. has increased much faster than actual inflation. Kind of like the housing prices in California. It can not sustain itself and is going to cause the market in those areas to crash or at the very least shrink down again unless they wake up.

It’s a GAME – Opinion

It’s a freaking game!

I see a lot of people out there complaining about the game economy and not making more caps, etc. in Fallout 76. It’s not like you can take those caps and exchange them to USD. It sums up to this for me… If you don’t find the game fun and the grind worthy of your time to get the things you want then move on to a different game!

It is so frustrating to watch the player vendors inflating the price of stuff that shouldn’t cost tons of caps. I actually saw someone selling a set of plans for more than the in-game vendors do! That is just plain GREED! What is worse is that it is greed over fictional money that doesn’t have any actual value!

People expecting Fallout 76 to be like Fallout 4, 3, New Vegas is crazy. Even though the assets came mostly from Fallout 4 the way the game works is way different. This is NOT a single player game with a fixed economy. Fallout 76 is an MMO! It might not be huge hordes of players on every server and require you to group up for most events but it is still designed in a way to encourage such game play. In fact the new Seasons system has daily challenges that make it so you have to group up even for a little bit, even if you aren’t actually questing together. Heck! Even without the needed challenges I still group up once in awhile in a Casual or Building group for the extra Charisma or Intelligence boosts they give because it helps with leveling or getting better gear. Which is the point of those boosts being part of the group mechanics. Its to make even people who want to play solo more likely to do groups because you don’t HAVE to do anything that the rest of the group is doing unless you want to.

This brings me to one of my other biggest complaints about some of the people who play this game. They keep comparing it to other MMOs as well! They make demands like auction houses, and Banks! This is not WOW! This is not ESO! The theme for this game is POST APOCALYPTIC WASTELAND! Most factions don’t trust each other… this close in time to when the bombs fell especially! Humans even in real life tend to look out for themselves even when they band together for survival! If you will take note of the in-game lore for Fallout 76 the uber rich elites that had no practical survival skills for the most part are the ones that ended up as RAIDERS and even then they splintered up and fought with each other as well as victimized those that were helping others like the Responders. I wouldn’t trust a Bank in a world that has organized Raiders in it even it was in Foundation! They get shit stolen from inside those walls DAILY. It’s a freaking quest to go out and get their items back from the Raiders who steal it! As for auction houses all that does is make the in-game economy just as bad as it already is because people decide that they need fake currency to make their lives meaningful. There are people out there in the game already charging so much that you can’t even carry it on one character. They have characters that are literally just mules for caps and items that they want to sell. They spend all their time getting fake shit to sell instead of actually enjoying the game!

I’m sorry but if the game has gotten to that point for you? Take a break and play something else. This isn’t Second Life where you can convert in-game currency to real money. This small business that you have in game? It doesn’t mean dick. If you are one of those that are selling items on eBay or something like that for real cash or someone who buys their items? You are part of the problem with the gaming industry and what you are doing should be illegal to do since you are selling or buying things that don’t actually belong to you as they are intellectual property of Bethesda.

Personal Responsibility and/or Parental Responsibility – Gaming

This post was sparked by watching a recent video by LegacyKillaHD. I am subscribed to him but most of the time I don’t agree with his opinions. However, he is a good source to find out about some of the less mainstream gaming news. This topic however has been a major discussion on his channel for well over a year now and that is Loot Boxes.

I understand how loot boxes can be explained as a type of gambling and how it can be addictive to certain personalities. I’ve had experiences with adults who were addicts of various kinds, heck, an uncle of mine used to be addicted to anything you can get hooked to… drugs, sex, gambling, drinking, smoking if you could get hooked he had done it. Being an addict can destroy your life, but , here is the thing and why I am writing this post. There is such a thing as a first step in an addicts path and personal responsibility is a real thing that needs to be addressed. The addict has to make the first choice to start on that path and continues to ignore their issues once they become addicted for whatever reason. Facing the hardships is part of personal responsibility and it does suck for them and everyone around them that has to re enforce that to them.

Now, I can hear a lot of you out there thinking What about the CHILDREN?! Well, it is the parents responsibility to not only monitor the spending of their kids, but, it is also their jobs to teach personal responsibility. Johnny or Susie spends money on a game that the parents don’t lock down the access for? Then it is on them because they didn’t lock it down properly so they have to take the hit financially. Then they need to turn around and find an appropriate punishment for the kids so that the mistake isn’t repeated even as adults themselves. I’ve seen plenty of stories over the years about kids spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on games using the parents credit cards, personal accounts on consoles/phones, etc. I’m sorry but it isn’t the game companies fault that it happened or the companies responsibility to pay that back.

Growing up my mother made sure that I learned that every action that I take can and will have consequences. She also made sure that I earned any money that I had access to for things I wanted. She taught me to spend responsibly and to plan ahead even when I was given money for birthdays and holidays. When she got into trouble with a credit card she taught me to bust ass to pay it off instead of filing for bankruptcy. After that she taught me to only get a credit line that I could pay off fairly easily. Basically she taught me to live within my means.

A lot of people aren’t taught these things anymore and would rather ban things, make laws of protection, and more instead of learning self control and personal responsibility. This issue is much greater than the video games industry but the industry is a great example of what is a huge failing in the majority of society right now.

I don’t want to get rid of loot boxes completely. Certain games they make sense to have them, but, I do agree on one thing that comes up in this debate. Video game companies are becoming too reliant on the income from them. They need to realize that the industry was grown and became as huge as it is because of good experiences, complete games, low glitches and bugs on release/launch, and the ability to stay true to the spirit of the franchises even if some of the stuff is updated. Players have multiple franchises that they play for a reason. There used to be staggered releases and such instead of the floods we get every year now. Some types of games shouldn’t be on quick turnarounds or yearly schedules.

I do understand the business side of things and the pressures that investors and stock markets can bring to the table. It’s up to the company though to bring understanding, knowledge, and proof that patience can bring higher long term rewards to those groups. There is proof in the history of the industry and the current scandals, horrible launches, and such to prove the point.

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Again it all boils down to taking personal responsibility.

A Gamer’s Frustration – August 5th, 2020

As the title suggests this is going to be about a few things in games I am currently playing that frustrate the heck out of me. I will name names and detail what it is that I am frustrated with up to an including shitty customer support.

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Let’s start with Bethesda and their title Fallout 76.

I have put almost 200 hours into the game at this point. I log onto the game everyday because they started doing this cool thing with it called Seasons which is apparently an online game staple where you can earn free things by just playing the game and completing challenges. I don’t pay for the Fallout 1st subscription because I can’t justify paying a hundred dollars at minimum a year for it when I already paid SIXTY DOLLARS for the game. If it was a free to play like Second Life or Warframe I could understand and justify paying a monthly fee to help keep the game going. This is one of the frustrating things because those that do pay that fee get unlimited scrap storage, private servers, and special cosmetic items for doing so while people who have bought the game but don’t pay the monthly get a 800 pound limit in universal storage, public servers (which aren’t too bad most of the time), and have to pay money to get special game currency to be able to get most of the cosmetics in the game shop. I also forgot to mention that subscribers also get given a monthly game currency stipend to spend in the game store or to save up as they wish. Oh, and for those that defend getting the monthly subscription because you basically get the amount of game currency per month that you would for the amount you pay? IT DOESN’T COST BETHESDA ANY MONEY OUT OF POCKET TO GIVE THAT TO YOU SINCE IT ISN’T A REAL CURRENCY YOU CAN EXCHANGE BACK TO USD!

On top of this the game is a mess. I love playing it most of the time because it is Fallout, but, I have had more issues come up in this game than in any Bethesda title that I have ever played and I have played a lot of them. Yes, the developer is known for the bugs as a running joke but an online game has to be almost perfect compared to single player titles because you can’t roll back to a previous save in order to save your inventory, etc if something decides to glitch out.

A perfect example of this is something that happened to me last night. I was playing the game and trying to get to the nearest area so that I could scrap what I had in my inventory. I was overburdened which isn’t unusual for me in this game. I decided to go to a place I hadn’t ever been to so that it is on my map for the future and since it was on my way anyway. I am in power armor, I am a heavy gunner but none of that matters when the enemies are invisible but are still somehow able to harm you. I didn’t know where I was being shot from, or where I could find cover from it, and so I tried to run but was gunned down from behind. Then it took over five minutes to respawn only to be instantly dead when I did because of the load time so I respawned again. This time it was almost instant. The enemies still hadn’t appeared so I quickly grabbed my scrap and almost died again but made it far enough away that they stopped hitting me. I was almost to my scrapping destination when… I FELL THROUGH THE MAP! I died of course because they set a limit on falling or an invisible floor under the map so of course when I respawned all that scrap that I had been carrying and had worked for half an hour to build up was sitting in my dropped loot bag UNDER THE MAP where I couldn’t get it. I quit for the night in frustration and mild anger. I actually said, “Fuck this shit, Fuck this game, I am done for the night with this shit.”

I have been falling randomly through the map for weeks now. I have already tried to talk to customer support about the issues I have been having with not just that but the invisible enemies, the terrain not popping in properly, textures being blurry and/or flickering, etc. They proceeded to blame my drivers, my graphics card, my graphics settings, and finally my internet. Keep in mind that I have no issues with any of my other games and before they updated the game for the season to start I wasn’t having any of these issues at all. The customer support is so canned and so bad that I finally just gave the fuck up and have just been sucking it up. They blame the response times and such on COVID-19 but from previous experience their support has always been shitty and the tone has always been blame towards the customer instead of a neutral tone like a lot of other places.

Heck, they had to unlock the Twitch Prime rewards for me manually because I still to this day can’t get my Bethesda account to resync up and connect with my Twitch Prime account. They blame Twitch and Twitch blames them so it’s basically a circle jerk of frustration so again I gave up trying to make it work.

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The next game that I have been having issues with is Dear Esther – Landmark Edition.

I decided to get this game because one of my other absolute favorite titles is Everyone’s Gone to the Rapture. I don’t care if people poo poo it as a walking simulator. If you actually pay attention to all the things you read, see, and hear it is a thought provoking story full of love and hope despite all the fear, anger, and such that was going on.

The love of that game is like I stated why I bought Dear Esther. I was hoping that the story in it would be just as thought provoking and lovely. However, I’ve never been able to even play it.

I started the game up and it was running just fine until I went into the settings. You see I use a 65 inch 4k television as my monitor but see my games better in 1920×1080. It is also less stressing on my video card depending on how new the title is, etc. Changing the resolution made the game go to black which has happened before with other titles, but, the game picture never returned and even with uninstalling and reinstalling it hasn’t come back. This means I can’t play it. The sounds are fine so I know the game is running, but, no picture. I of course went online to search for a solution, but, the only one that I can find requires that I go into my computer’s registry file and alter it. This is actually quite dangerous to do if you don’t know what the hell you are doing because it can nerf your whole system! I don’t have the knowledge to do it nor am I ignorant enough to think nothing bad will happen to try it anyway. I tried writing the developer about the issue and didn’t hear back. I didn’t even get an automated email letting me know they got it. So, I waited a day… still no reply, still no automated email. I wrote them again today letting them know again what the issue is. I also sent them a direct message through Twitter. No response so far. This is pissing me off and frustrating me to no end. The game isn’t new, this bug/issue isn’t new, there are people all over the forums having this same problem but nothing has been done? I did let the developers know that if they can’t be bothered to fix something like this then I can’t be bothered to continue to support their work and will be asking for a refund on the game. The Landmark Edition is supposed to be the newest most complete edition of the game!

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I know that games can’t be perfect. Even old school titles like Super Mario Bros. has bugs and glitches in it. But why has it in this day and age of being able to digitally update a title to fix them, unlike Super Mario Bros. which couldn’t be updated in the old days, has it become common place to ignore shit? To just shrug customer opinion off like water on a duck?