No names named, no reasons explained. I just don't want to support this site anymore. If you're following me here, stop. It is unlikely I'll be posting anything here in the near (or distant) future. I'll be lurking on the free content from a distance, but no more active participation. No more premium either.
Yeah, yeah "You won't be missed" or whatever. Peace.
So The Division is out and has been for a few weeks now. I enjoy it, the endgame is grind-y, but fun, so far and it's just been a fun place to burn time while rocking a podcast or two and searching for the 'phat loots' we all love so much.
Then I made the mistake of reading a Kotaku review. Now, to be completely fair to the writer of said review, they may not have expected their social commentary to go this far That was what the comments did. Before I get into this, however, I'll be completely upfront about three things:
1. I have reached max level in The Division. Meaning I have beaten all story content and dabbled in the Dark Zone PVP/PVE areas.
2. I should not have been surprised that an article on Kotaku, or any of it's many sister sites for that matter, took a heavily biased stance on something. That is how they get their pageviews after all.
3. I should not have read the comments on the article to begin with. That was a mistake I can readily admit to. I am sorry for doing that, both for myself and for anyone who reads this since those comments moved me to type this damn thing to begin with
Now then; let's get down to the meat of this.
While I have greatly enjoyed my time with the game, it has become obvious to me that I apparently didn't pay much attention to it during my double digit hours in that world. I say this because the very first collection of comments on Kotaku's review mention how you just run around gunning down homeless people and take part in Right-Wing wet dreams. If such an opinion is so often repeated, I wonder if I have been playing a super secret version of the game. With the exception of wildlife such as birds and dogs, you cannot harm any unarmed person in the game world. You can read about stories of such a thing, rioters attacking a group of non-combatants for example, but that is it. Any civilian you can save can't be injured by your weapons. The cursor turns green, you can pull the trigger, but nothing actually happens to them. It's almost like, I don't know, you're some kind of good guy! Speaking of which.
The more "obvious" complaint people are making is that you are not a good guy at all: You're some kind of government lackey out to cleanse the world of the poor and downtrodden. Again, in over twenty hours of playtime, I guess I must have missed that part. There are moments where it gets absurd of course, like when the people who supposedly are just trying to survive also shoot the supplies you're defending, but the concept that you're some kind of reverse Punisher who's out to sweep the streets clear of any seemingly worthless human life is insane. I read that comment thread, followed it deep into that pit of revulsion and I came out with a new understanding of what the original poster was talking about. Namely that he or she didn't know what the Hell they were talking about.
Their argument, as near as I can understand it, was this: An off-hand comment made during the game referenced the "Black Lives Matter" movement. This line, uttered by an African-American woman who lead one of the game's hostile factions, was handled poorly and seemed to provoke the topic yet offer no sense of explanation or examination of what the topic means. The commenter saw this, and the aforementioned (but, again, impossible) purge of innocents in the game, as a form of Jingoism.
There are a lot of deep dives we could take here on that topic. Examinations of what that phrase truly means to some people and the like, but let's not. Instead, let's just stick to two very obvious things that took some digging to find in that thread.
Let's not beat around the bush here people: Tom Clancy wrote mostly about Jingoistic scenarios. They were kind of his bag. I'm not saying every story was like that, nor am I saying that the man thought that way in his day to day life, but such a concept showing up in The Division is not a surprise. That setting was discussed in further depth in the review proper, the author coming to the conclusion that the game was too afraid to actually elaborate on some topics it brought up. I take issue with this because both the author and the main commenter I'm referencing seemed to read far more into the game than I did. I'm not saying they are wrong for doing that in a game, but I will call them out for doing it here. The Division is, at it's core, a game set in a fairly realistic version of New York City. That is obvious. The part that annoys me is how a few lines, uttered by a character you barely know, somehow means that the entire game is a propaganda piece. These assumptions were made, one would imagine, because the character in question who speaks that line is the leader of "The Rikers," a gang that formed after it escaped from an abandoned Rikers Island and made it back to NYC.
Rikers Island is a messed up place out here in the real world. It's walls house forms of cruelty and corruption I could not even imagine let alone get into here. I bring this up because the reviewer made damn sure to do so. The game, however, never did. It made no mention of this gang's motivation beyond getting revenge for being locked up. There were no banners thrown in player's faces hinting that they had been mistreated. The only hint you got about their motivations were those of a more common, dare I say even obvious, nature. The cops put them away and left them to rot at Rikers; now they want revenge. Hell, I would too. That's not propaganda, that's human nature.
I won't even touch the Black Lives Matter controversy the reviewer and commenter mentioned. Know why? Because the game damn sure didn't. The off hand comment made by a boss character in the game may have hinted at it, but the effort both people I've been reading reviews and comments from are going through sure make it sound like the game is throwing the topic in our faces. It is not, so I will not even bother going deeper than this. It was a hunt to find something that was not there, pure and simple.
So here we are folks, the main event. The whole enchilada. The entire reason I typed this...
The commenter who, along with the reviewer, started all this Jingoistic/Race-Related nonsense to begin with stated that he or she had only played "three hours total" of the game on PC. "It was a gift" they said. Even that admitted fact, however, did not dissuade them from speaking up about the horrible things that Ms. Barrett, the leader of "The Rikers" gang, hinted at with her comment. Now, maybe some of you haven't played the game or, perhaps, some of you just forgot, but here's a little fact for you folks: It is impossible to get anywhere near that area of the game within three hours. That is a mission with a recommended level of twenty. There is no way on this or any other Earth that this person made it to that fight within such a short amount of time.
So why the long blog post on my part? Was it the obviously slanted nature of the review? No, not so much. That is what reviews are. Was it the bashing the game took recently for it's flaws? Nah, people can like what they like. My problem, the thing that truly enraged me, is how this uninformed commenter read the review, altered some words to not be so obviously taken from it and then threw that misplaced "knowledge" in the public's face.
Yes, I know: It's the internet and people are terrible, but come on. Come. On. If you're going to make claims like theirs, you had better be able to at least access the part of the game you're bashing. I'll be honest people: It disgusted me. I had hoped, foolishly I admit, that the person just wanted to comment on the nature of the topics at hand. Maybe, just maybe, even go deeper into the true atrocities they claimed to be so against and how the the game itself handled them. But no, they just wanted to throw their opinion in under a disguise of fact. To push an agenda.
This has been a rant, I know and I'm sorry if you feel angered by the content you've just read. But hey, unlike that commenter, at least you earned the anger! Kudos.
So here's the scenario folks: You're stuck at home during some bad weather yet you need to play something that will get you through the harsh grasp of mother nature. The internet is out, your cloud accounts lie barren and downloading anything new is a distinct impossibility. What do you reach for? What game can be relied upon in times like these?
As an obvious aside: No, you're not allowed to wonder why you still have power but can't go online. Such logic is forbidden and it makes me sad that you'd even mention it. For shame! Shame I say! Ahem. For me, the answer is quite obvious: The Dreamcast would be pulled immediately back into the system rotation. I know that Sega fans are often regarded as odd at best and insane at worst...
Humor me a bit here though because that logo doesn't scream "Console Wars" or any other suitably absurd thing to me. Instead it causes me to relax and think of the calmer times. Times when I didn't need to patch a game just to play it or worry about someone who disagreed with my gaming opinion "Swatting" my house. To my aging mind, they were flat out better times to be a gamer. Let the preposterous nature of that statement sink in for a bit, but let's get back to my original answer to my own question: Why would I take out the DC over something else?
Some may reach for the Super Nintendo, others may go further back or stick to more recent technology. To me the answer is so obvious because I am a fighting game fan and, Sega's inability to market anything aside, the Dreamcast was my go to place for any kind of digital fisticuffs. Sure, it may have required a dip into other markets to get the games, but there was certainly no lack of quality fighters to be found. Classics like Soul Calibur, for example, could be found alongside Capcom Vs. SNK and Mark Of The Wolves.
The beauty of the Dreamcast, however, wasn't just it's ability to provide a capable fighting game platform, but to also bring about so many changes to how I played games at all. As much as it may shame those I know in the "scene" now, I wasn't always a PC gamer. In fact, my first real addiction to online shooters was from Quake 3 Arena ... on the Dreamcast. Yes, I was playing it with that gamepad, shut up. This sudden vision of how I could play was soon bolstered by the superb NFL and NHL 2K games on offer on the same console. It may not mean much in passing, but to someone like me who isn't even the least bit interested in sports, that sudden decision to play a game based on them, and online against strangers no less, carries a lot of weight with me.
Online gaming is a bit of cheat to mention here, considering I said no online games at the start of this so...how about Skies Of Arcadia? Or Grandia 2? Or any other collection of RPGs really. Arcadia also brought me deeper into handhelds than I had expected; that stupid pirate game you could play on your VMU taking up far more of my hours than it should have been able to.
There were better systems out there, ones with a PR company that knew what the Hell it was doing and who knew how to attract developers. For me, however, very little in gaming can match the sensation of firing up Capcom Vs. SNK 2 or Ikaruga on a cold winter night and just burning the hours away.
So what about it duders? What do you folks play to pass the time during uncooperative weather?
This all started because of the Dreamcast. I just want to make that clear right from the start. You see, I recently moved to a new place and having finally settled all the trivial stuff, such as power and the like, it was time to get the old consoles hooked up. There I hit a snag.
I don't know when one of my cousins took the Dreamcast and most of the games, nor do I know where he sold them, but they're gone now and I'm in a bit of a legal pickle. It was a beautiful console you know, all odd circles and a crisp shade of white.
Replacing such a beauty would be simple, oddly enough, but the games would be a far larger problem. I owned a lot of fighting games for that system and most were not the American versions. I spent many a time swapping the converter disc in and out of that machine...
Point is that I had some games and needed to track down more plus a system to play them on. A replacement DC system? About thirty bucks. Another controller since I had two at the time? Ten bones. Not bad. Then it was time to get punched in the wallet...repeatedly.
Actually, let's break that list for a minute. Capcom Vs. SNK on the Dreamcast is on Ebay right now, unopened, for nearly $150 but the used copy is thirty? An opened copy of Capcom Vs. SNK 2, a better game than it's predecessor in just about every way, is only fifteen? What the hell is going on around here?
Anyway, I ordered some of the games I just described because, well, strike while the iron is hot and such, but some are just insanely priced. Plasma Sword, a game which isn't very good and I will not dispute that, can be found for hundreds of real dollars and I don't know why. Sure the system has been dead for years now, but, Plasma Sword? Seriously? It's subtitled "Nightmare Of Bilstein" for Heaven's sake! Anyone who pays over twenty bucks for that is crazy, crazy I tell you!
So after grabbing Plasma Sword for thirty bucks, it was time for the bad part: The converter disc conundrum. They can be found in various and predictable forms ranging from the classic "Put this disc in to trick your system" to a fully modded Dreamcast system. That is what led me here to this post:
I Can't Actually Ask My Question Anymore Due To Forum Rules. Here's A Video Of A Goat Trying to Stand On A Pig For Some Reason...
In my youth I had a tendency to play one game for very, very long amounts of time before moving on. Sure, like most kids that was because my folks weren't loaded enough to drop crazy money on things, but I did it all the same. There were countless records I set for myself back then, but none were so memorable as the total play time I had in the 360 version of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. 138 Hours. You read that right: One Hundred Thirty-Eight Hours of play time.
It was something I always felt only partially proud of. Not because I was purely ashamed or anything, but chunks of time shown all grouped together like that have a tendency to make you question how you could have better spent your time. I mean, yeah, I got that sweet glass armor set and hunted for Sigil Stones to give it exactly the qualities I wanted, but it always nagged on me that I had spent so much time to get there.
Fast forward to today. I fire up the Witcher 3, as one does, and decide to take a look at my play time since it was one of the only stats in that game I haven't looked at yet.
12 Days 4 Hours 20 Minutes 13 Seconds.
Yeah, that's right, that's how that game keeps track of the time. No big number for you, oh no! Just a fat, Call Of Duty-style ticker of exactly how much of your life you've wasted. Wasted is harsh, sure, because the game is amazing, but still...over TWELVE days invested? I'm surprised you didn't hear me gasp from wherever you are in the world. Doubly so when I actually converted that to a total hour count - 292. That. Is. Insane. Insane I tell you!
So, uh, I'm gonna go outside or something. Kind of feels like I owe the sunlight a visit or two now, you know?
When the Earth was young and the stakes seemed high, all that would remain to showcase our video game related triumphs were a few initials scrolling slowly, or far too quickly, on a flickering screen. Now though? No, now things have changed...
Was...was that opening too dramatic? I can never tell anymore.
Regardless, I'm here to have a conversation about a certain shooter some of you may have heard about: Battlefield: Hardline. It has it's flaws, Jeff having mentioned a few of them during a fairly recent bombcast in fact. Despite them though, I find myself returning to it over and over again these last few weeks, like a moth to flame. Was it the riveting story? Hahaha...No. The tight gun play? Nah. The surprisingly stable (for a BF game) multiplayer? Nope. This particular moth was drawn not to a flame, but the sweet shine emitted by possibly easy trophies!
Now, before some of you run away at the mere mention of them, let me defend trophies a bit here. A trophy or achievement can bring about a lot of reply value for a game. Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor is a good example of that, the activities it requests in order to earn them a nice balance between just playing through the story and messing about with all the game's systems in ways that you may not have tried.
Hardline goes a more simplistic route, often tying a trophy/achievement unlock to the "old standbys" like finishing a chapter or getting a few kills with a new weapon or item. It was in this kill-focused trophy that I encountered a problem: The grinding...oh dear lord, the grinding!
If you Look At The Trophy List, you'll see just a standard collection of stuff I mentioned. You know, complete this mission, find x item, finish on this difficulty, etc. along with a few that make you do some fun side things (Tasers! Tasers everywhere!). Hidden there in that list, however, lies an evil presence. A dark beast that isn't there for replay value or entertainment. No, this creature demands your time, all of it. Your skills, faultless. You must be a machine, a cold calculating beast yourself.
This terrible spirit has a name: They call it "Menz In The Hood" and...and it's impossible to keep this foreboding tone going when the name is that dumb isn't it?
To save you a trip to the trophy hunters den, that particular trophy has become the bane of most who try to earn it. You think to yourself "Well, I'll just unlock the weapons I need and get the kills right?" Oh you simple fool! No, not this time. Now, here, at this very moment, you must get not one but two classes to basically their max levels to even qualify to get the guns. Then, and only then, will you be allowed to start working towards the criteria to actually get the guns themselves.
What's that? You completed these kinds of things already? Hah! They didn't count then you silly person you: Do them again, and mean it this time! You'll actually start hoping, as I did, for people to drop the already unlocked guns so you can pick them up and get closer to that dark trophy's goals.
Or perhaps it's not a beast at all? Maybe this is instead a dark messiah, it's rage-inducing requirements causing others in the hunting community to band together and boost the hell out of this thing? Because we are. Oh man we surely are.
So what was the point of this blog, hmm? To unite all trophy hunters towards a common goal? To shed more light on a shooter with far better online functionality than the studio that normally makes the battlefield games?
Nah, not really, I just wanted to say I enjoyed the game and that I disagreed with Jeff's dismissal of it. In long prose because, hell, why not?
Thanks for reading along with my hubris folks. Now then, if you'll excuse me, I still need to unlock this damn shotgun...
I won't sit here and mince words; This is about "Gamergate." It is not some awkward attempt to drum up pageviews or some other form of insulting viral nonsense. It is something that I have been wondering for some time and I do, honestly, truthfully and completely, want feedback on this.
I've been a gamer for as long as I can remember. From paddles to trackpads, joysticks to Oculus, I've played all that I could get my hands on. Now though, in times when I genuinely felt like we could finally prove that our hobby is so much more than that, we instead get the stories of harassment, of fear, of people who worry for the sake of their own family over something that should be a non issue - sexism in gaming, in culture, in the world as a whole. Life moves so fast and our egos move right along with them in such a way that perhaps we don't realize how little progress we've actually made in all these years.
I don't write this as some kind of surrender notification or, even worse, as an excuse to turn the other way. No, this is for something that is actually useful. A set of questions that I hope we can all ask ourselves and come to a helpful conclusion. They are simple, honest and, hopefully, something we can all focus on...
This isn't some epic question is it? We're not really so far afield that we don't even realize this is going on right? I think we are, in multiple ways. I'll admit to being blind to it, to thinking that is wasn't as big a problem as it had been portrayed. I will also admit, right here and now, that I was horrendously wrong on that...can you do the same?
Make no mistake, I seek not to blame one or two gamers here - I intend to blame us all. We watched it happen, for years in many cases. Why? I wish I could tell you, I really do, but I lack the ability to see on so large a scale. That is why I'm writing this message today, a day when stories of yet another female developer being harassed and threatened made headlines. Not on a gaming site where it should have been, not in low whispers around it as it happened, and may have been stopped right then and there by people who should have known better. No, this happened on MSNBC. On a nationwide news network that took the time to run the interviews and the stories that most of the "news" outlets we respect should have done so already.
I don't intend to mock GB here: The work Patrick has done in this area is already well documented after all. But what of the rest of our supposedly understanding community? What about the people who probably knew about it ahead of all of us? I mentioned before how I once felt great pride for my hobby, how I imagined it as finally reaching an apex that we could all be proud of. I was mistaken. A fool blinded by many factors, as were many of us I suspect. That leads us to the most important question of all:
It is that simple really. I'm asking you folks: What should we do? I don't mean this is some backhanded way. I want to help - How do I do it? Give me information on it. The best links you can find: From petitions that may actually prove useful to twitter handles and company e-mails. Who do we speak to? What should we say?
I've been playing in a fantasy gaming world for years now - It's time to get back to reality. We can do this, I know we can. So let's find a way to do it. And do it soon, before we scare an entire gender away for no other reason than our...well, whatever the hell reason people are doing this for.
I'll make mistakes, I'm bumble with sources and type the wrong websites, but there has to be a way to make a difference besides little blog posts like this. I say we find them.
UPDATE [10/14/2014]:
Well the forum thread, aka "mirrored version" of this blog entry, was locked on me for overlapping with another thread...which is also locked so...guess this was a waste of time then? If the best we can do is "Don't be a dick" then I think we're well past the point of no return then. It was worth a try at least. Granted, I'll follow that advice, since it seems like common sense, but beyond that? Very disappointed with how this went down. Now people can't reply even if they wanted to...
Surely anyone who cares (or really likes hating things that still make a lot of money). there was a Multiplayer Reveal Trailer for the newest Call Of Duty. Didn't see it? Here it is:
Now then, before I get deep into this, let me give a little background into my FPS history as it relates to this craziness:
I have been playing the CoD series since two. No, not Modern Warfare 2 or Black Ops 2, just Call Of Duty 2. It's been a love hate thing most of the time but, for me, the multiplayer is an excellent time waster when you don't have the ability to sit down and get into some deep mentally challenging expereince. That isn't to mock the games themselves though. Truth be told, simple action and a bombastic story have their place, just fire up any summer blockbuster for example, so a game merely being loud and fun works fine for me.
There were dark times though during my little CoD legacy, most involving people yelling INFINITY WARD or TREYARCH at the top of their internet lungs in pointless attempts to defend a certain studio over another. For the record: I stand on the Treyarch side of things, World At War being a fun time and both Black Ops games matching up well too.
Back on topic though: Modern Warfare 3 was terrible, Ghosts wasn't much better. They were serviceable games that played and controlled as well as their peers but just lacked something to me. Though I just mocked people for siding with them, Treyarch's games always seemed to be about pushing things along for the CoD series. People will argue that may have hurt them but I think that is why the games made by them are so obviously "theirs." There is a feeling of refinement there, a sense that the studio was working to make changes not for the sake of making them but because they felt like it would work. MW3 and Ghosts lacked that to me. Even with the changes, it felt by the numbers. A Call Of Duty [Insert Number Here] because there had to be one, not because is would be great to play.
So why then, why do I feel this building hype for the non Treyarch developed Advanced Warfare? It seems simple in retrospect - It's nuts. The team appears to have looked over their design and said "Look, we're giving people power armor in the campaign, let's just crank this nonsense as far as it can go for the multiplayer!"
I applaud that logic. Call Of Duty MP, at it's core, isn't about how serious it takes itself or how realistic it should be. It's about doing crazy stuff and having others around to share it with. I could go on about how unbalanced the weapons were in Modern Warfare 3, but why bother? I could point out how the big story reveal of Black Ops 1 was kind of dumb, but for what? One way or another, you've got tales of glorious victory and occasional failure to tell. Go out there and tell them.
Just think of it - You've got a power suit and jump jets people! The possibilities for insanity are almost limitless!
Damn man, has it really been two years since my last blog post? Craziness!
Guess between all the commenting on videos here and just generally trolling around the boards, I may have forgotten to update things around here. We can change that though, it's okay right? Sure it is! So, since every person online is usually an ego maniac anyway, I'm going to use this opportunity to talk about what I've been playing. In particular order, here we go:
Now, I've Already Mentioned my feelings on Thief, but I really do want to enjoy the game so I keep playing it, possibly looking for some part of it, not matter how small, that gives me hope for the IP's future. It is one of my favorite franchises and I just had to try, you know? Sadly it just isn't happening. From the open world that isn't really open to the horrendous load times every time you open a door or window, I can't justify it to anyone. Fans of the series, like myself, will be mad about what has happened to it and people who have never seen a Thief game will just look at it and go "My, what a generic stealth game this is." In case it wasn't obvious, it only broke my heart to go deeper into the game. Such a wasted opportunity.
Another illustrious member of my previously linked list, BF4 has actually shown more improvement that I expected. Most matches I hop into run smoothly and, minor hitches aside, I only leave games now by choice rather than when it forces me to. Only problem now, and I have no immediate proof of this besides my own jaded viewpoint, is that the game seems to be a purely "Pay To Win" scenario now. People who have the expansions seem to flat out have better, more powerful weapons than I do. Can I prove that beyond looking at the specs and making guesses? No, not really, but the game just seems to have a hint of BS to it when I get killed by guns I never heard of that just happen to be very accurate compared to my own. Could it be I'm just bad at it? Rest assured, I'm not here to blame it all on the game, but some stuff seems, shall we say, unlikely.
Besides this scenario, my biggest complaint about the game at this point is how mismatched it feels to me in relation to ranked games. Much like the bullshit I dealt with in Titanfall (before trading that "game" in at least), I consistently get paired up against teams who are at least level eighties. Keep in mind, I am a Level 30 so it doesn't exactly seemed balanced in any sense of the word. Could just be me whining instead of trying to get better with the little spare time I have, but either way I'm not enjoying my time with Battlefield 4 these days. Pity.
With a collection of some of the most unevenly scored reviews I've ever seen, I didn't know what to expect from Watch Dogs. It is GTA with a more serious side? A stealth game with some hacking? A total waste of time and money? The proof that the next generation of games is here?
First things first: People really, really need to stop getting their expectations so damn high. How in the name of all that is holy could a game released near the beginning of a console's life be the greatest scion of all that gaming will be on said console? It can't, it won't and people should be ashamed for falling into that trap. Hell, by that logic, Fantavision defined the Playstation 2. Temper the hype folks, it will serve you well in the future.
As for the actual game: I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The story telling tries to make you care and, in my case, actually succeeds so far. The combat is fun, the hacking mechanic is limited but enjoyable and it's always a blast to set up traps using the hack-able objects around the game's world. Are there problems with the game? Naturally, but I haven't encountered one that makes me outright hate playing the game.
Only thing about Watch Dogs that can hamper your enjoyment of it is the economy within the game. If you use your ability to hack into people's bank accounts often enough, you will have more than enough money to buy just about every weapon very early on. Couple that with how simple the starting silenced pistol makes everything and it becomes almost hilariously easy to sweep through the first few hours.
Overall though? I'm liking it and look forward to playing it some more.
Speaking of which, I'm gonna go do that right now. Later people.
So, yeah, I need to get part of a quest done, but why just type some random nonsense? There is nerdy stuff afoot!
First of all people, look at this and then come back to me...
Done? Good. Wasn't that thing sweet looking? Man December is looking good for the model nerd who, um, can't get a hands on with a real model.
That and the news that a demo of Metal Gear Rising is coming with the upcoming Zone Of The Enders collection has got me psyched. So much random robotic action, so little time!
Guess that's it then; gotta keep this first blog post short, lest I bore the hell out of you...what? Too late? Screw it then, I'm out!
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