Hi, My name is Anders, and I am (among other things) a freelance games writer/blogger who mainly work with a Norwegian site named Spillmagasinet. Now, ordinarily I'd run my impression pieces in Norwegian exclusively on my blog, and Spillmagasinet would front them, and this particular impression piece will still run the normal course. But for this game, A game I until just a few days ago didn't even know existed, I'm gonna make an exception, and translate it to English. Reason being: this game is really something people need to look at. If the blog post reads in a weird way, bear in mind English isn't my native language.

Full disclosure: Impression made possible by way of Review Code received from publisher.

The game industry is healthier than ever it would seem. If you have a fancy for a particular kind of game, chances are you have multiple games to choose from. To my mind there has never been a broader range of games coming out, and this is something I view as an almost exclusively positive thing. But if I were to mention one negative, it would be the possibility that smaller games, from game studios that aren't that well known yet, may still slip between the cracks now and again. This could have been the fate of Stardew Valley before it was "discovered" and it may still happen to Hue from Fiddlesticks Games.

Hue is a 2D Puzzle Platforming game where you play as a small boy looking for his mother. Hue lives in a world where there originally were no colors, but as Hue will soon find out, the world he lives in is so much more than it appears to be.

As Hue, the player will need to use colors to solve various puzzles to proceed in the search for his mother. You start off with one color and as you proceed through the game, more colors are made available to you. As the puzzles become more complex you will need to learn how to quickly switch between and use the correct colors in any given situation, and there were plenty of puzzles were I got stuck, only to feel like a moron when the solution to the puzzle had been staring me in the face the whole time

The music and the presentation is very appealing, especially to me. Somber piano music melts well with the enthralling mix of smooth animations and colorful design. As mentioned earlier the game is coming to us from the newly started studio Fiddlesticks Games, that is comprised of Dan De Rocha and Henry Hoffman who people might know for being part of the crew behind 2011's Q.U.B.E

Hue is set to release on August 30 on Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC, whilst a Vita version is slated for a release in September. The game is Cross Buy on the Sony platforms. I will post a review on my blog when the embargo is up, and as you might already have guessed, I'm pretty much in love with this game already.

The last few days I've borne witness to three things: Valve announced their new take on the Steam Workshop, Then I saw gamers reacting to this, and lastly Gabe Newell appearing on a Reddit AMA where he defended their stance and reassured gamers that the quality of the product came first, and if their vision for the Workshop didn't work, it would be scrapped.

As far as I understand, their new vision was to allow the developers behind Mods that appear on the Workshop to make money off of their hard work. This way Valve also hoped to bring the quality of the mods to new heights. I've seen some pretty impressive mods in my day, and I know a lot of gamers have gotten extra mileage out of games, like Skyrim for instance, through modifications so this is something I'm all for, at least in concept.

From what I've read on the matter, it seems that Valve and the developer/publisher of the games the mods are made for will take a 75% cut, leaving 25% for the mod developer. At first this struck me as odd and unfair but after some thought I'm definitely more open to this idea.

Valve owns the platform where these games and mods are distributed, so of course they get a cut, The developer/distributor owns the game where the modifications fit in, so they should get a cut too. Had the mod developer gotten the majority or all of the profits from the mods, it would put the developer/distributor in a weird place where they were allowing someone to make money of their the product they themselves own and not seeing a cut of it.

For instance, lets take a look at Just Cause 2. Before the multiplayer modification came out this game had run its course in the sales market. It was being sold for a couple of bucks on Steam quite regularly. Then came the modification and the sales skyrocketed, but the price remained unaltered. Had the mod developer been allowed to take lets say 10-15 bucks for each copy of the modification that was installed, the Mod developer would earn quite the payday and the distributor would have been left in the dust,

Sure they would have made money, but not as much as they could have, and definitely not as much as they would like. So had this actually been a real scenario, then I would think the publishers would be less likely to put their games on sales, which would ruin one of the great things about being into PC gaming.

By allowing the mod developer to earn some money off of their products, even if it isn't more than 25%, Valve and the publishers are creating a "mod scene" where the mod developers actually can sustain their development and get a chance to hone their skills. And who knows, maybe these mod developers are the ace game developers of tomorrow.

If by the next time I am in the market of backing a game on Kickstarter I could see in the credentials of the developer that they had made a mod that I or some of my friends liked, I know atleast I would be more inclined to back that project.

There are pitfalls of course, Some will try to release unusable mods on the workshop to make money off of, and some sleazebags will release mods they've stolen from some poor developer. But if we all pull together and actively report cases we think are sketchy then this might not be as big of a problem as it potentially could be.

As long as Steam Workshops Pay-For-Mods plan doesn't supplant the guys that wants their mods to be free, then I see no problem with the solution Valve has presented us with, Sure the mod developers could get a bit more for their work. 33% somehow seems better. But in the end it is up to Valve and the IP holder to decide the terms. They are the ones who are allowing a third party to make money on a product that is by design useless without the product they own. So in closing, I'd say I'm pretty enthusiastic towards the future of this thing, whatever it ends up being

Any comment I give on the matter is of course my subjective opinion and I don't expect everyone to agree with me. Do you have another take on the situation or do you think I've missed something? Sound off in the comments.

I love Resident Evil 4, The eerie feeling that game gives still sends a chill down my spine. From the starting village where it feels like everything used to be normal but something went horribly wrong to the creepy castle of the main antagonist. The game just embodies dread in a way few games do.

I also love Castlevania. I've spent hours upon hours in Dracula's castle, painstakingly learning each of the enemies patterns and dying over and over again until I got it just right.

Now, when the Souls games came out I didn't pay them much mind. Over the years I've gotten soft and have felt that my time was better spent with games that welcomed my presence more than those games did. While I later got into Dark Souls and even started to like it. It wasn't until the sequel I really started loving the games. Dark Souls still feel to oppressive to me, and if I ever sit down and play it, I turn off the audio and instead pull up one of my favorite Tv shows or Giant Bomb videos (Metal Gear Scanlon represent) on my second screen to keep me from going insane.

So when Bloodborne came out little over a week ago I started to wonder where the game would place on the Frustration vs. Enjoyment scale and I've now, before I've even finished the game, come to a conclusion.

I love it

I'll probably write a review somewhere down the line, but I thought it was about time to write a few words about what makes me love the game so.

Bloodborne does everything RE4 did well even better. The enemies aren't as frustratingly difficult, the combat feels much smother to me and the "rinse and repeat" style of gameplay invokes the feeling Castlevania did back in the NES days. The Cane/Whip weapon also goes along way of making me feel like one of the Belmonts.

Back in Demon Souls, and to an extent Dark Souls and it's sequel, Dying wasn't just a defeat, it came with it's fair share of punishment aswell, whether that being me loosing a chunk of my health bar until I filled certain requirements to gain it back or making me cursed so I had to grind the right enemies to get an item that would free me from said curse or backtrack large chunks of the world to find the specific merchant that sold the item for a very steep price.

Seethe The Scaleless made me finally give up trying to beat Dark Souls, just because of the enormous "corpse run" and the annoying pattern I had to follow to get freed from the curse he put on me after I died.

Hardcore Souls players, like some of my friends might brush this off as "part of the game" but it really got to me and I only felt the whole thing detracted from an otherwise awesome game.

Some might say that Bloodborne is too casual to be counted as part of the Souls series, and some might even call me out on that in the comments and I welcome it. Yes the game isn't as "hardcore" as the rest and it comes of as a bit more arcade-y than the others but that doesn't matter to me

Because I really love Bloodborne you guys

It feels kind of odd to write those words, as I grew up on an island on the west coast of Norway that is primarily known for fishing and offshore supply boats. But fishing kind of sucks to be honest. And before I get a lot of angry emails from fishing enthusiasts, I feel I need to clarify that I'm talking about fishing in video games.

Why this sudden burst of hatred you might ask? Well for the last few weeks I've been playing Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. And as part of the Single Player Caravan quests, one of the things you need to do is to catch and deliver fish for the caravan. The quests require you to do a god awful mini-game where you have to watch the fishes swim aimlessly around the ponds, while you carefully watch the lure for any sign of a bite. When you first get a fish interested, the window you have to press is ridiculously small. And it gets even worse if the fish you need to get is one of the larger ones, as the window is smaller and their bite will throw you into another mini-game where you need to button mash to be able to pull the creature on shore.

There are things you can do to ease the experience a bit, but that does not excuse the fact that these idiotic side quests exist in the first place. They do not add to the Monster Hunter experience in any way and they should have been left behind in the previous installments. As always you get 50 minutes to finish the quest. Fair enough, but then they also throw in a Monster for good measure and of course he'll gladly ruin your experience even more. How many times do I have to tell you Zamtrios, I'm not here for you this time!!

Has there ever been a fishing sidequest that people actually enjoyed? I remember spending far too much time at the Fishing Pond in Ocarina of Time, but I can't remember enjoying it. I was a bit of a completionist back then as new games were few and far between. Hyrule was such a cool place to spend time anyway.

There! I got that off my chest. Anyone else have a similar experience?

My name is Anders, I'm from Norway, And if it's ok by you guys, I was thinking about starting the English counterpart to my gaming blog, right here on Giant Bomb. Cool by you?

So here's the deal

I'm a 24 year old guy, living on the west coast of Norway. Grew up on an island where, ever since I was a kid, I've been spending most of my free time playing video games. I now live with my fianceé and our son Bjørn in the coastal town of Haugesund.

My earliest gaming memories include playing Brøderbund's Prince of Persia, on my family's Windows 3.1 laptop that could only display 2 or 3 "colors". I later got a Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for you Americans) and I've loved gaming ever since.

About this time last year I had been on and off blogging over at Destructoid for about 6 or 7 months, and decided it was time to get a bit more serious. Unfortunately, balancing a full job as an electrician/instrument technician, responsibilities towards my family, squeezing in some time for gaming with keeping a blog updated on a regular basis has proved... difficult. I'm however committed to the task and trying my best so hopefully I'll be able to produce some content that you guys find entertaining.

I love getting feedback on my work, in whatever form it might be. I'll only get better at this if I get pointers when I'm not doing so great. Also I'd love to hear from you if you have an opinion on the subjects I blog about.

So yeah... That's about the jist of it. I'll be translating the content from my Norwegian blog over here every once in a while, and we'll see how it goes from there. I'm looking forward to reading some of your content as well.

See ya later