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BlackRedGaming

You can go to blackredgaming.com to find a prettier and more organized form of my blogs.

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I Got A Nintendo Switch

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Despite my previous question seeming pretty against the Switch, I eventually decided to get one. So I woke up at six in the morning, got to target at around 6:30 A.M., sat in a small line for one and a half hours, and got one of only ten Switches sold that day at that Target. Also, since everyone is getting 'Just Dance 2017,' I decided to be different from everyone else and get 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.' After spending some time with the system, here are the things I have to say about it.

One of the biggest surprises that I should have seen coming from a mile away is that, for at least BOTW(Breath of the Wild,) the game ran better on portable mode than on the screen. Not only that, but the screen is very nice. It is vibrant in colors and it's hard to see that the screen is 720p. But since the screen is smaller in size and is only 720p, the game ran generally better on the screen than on my 21 inch monitor.

The Switch gamepad next to the Wii-U gamepad. As you can see, the colors on the Switch are vibrant and the screen is bright.
The Switch gamepad next to the Wii-U gamepad. As you can see, the colors on the Switch are vibrant and the screen is bright.

The system-from what I can tell- is all in the tablet. This one is a no-brainer, but I say this because I thought that the dock would add some more performance to the game, but know it just seems to me that the dock is just a charger and a usb-c to cdmi port.

The tablet with controllers on are surprisingly light and durable. The material used for the controllers are nice. But the kick stand is pretty bad, which made tabletop gaming to me seem like the worst way to play. Despite having the controls free from the system, the kick stand and the fact that you are farther from the screen made it kinda bad to play that way. Speaking of the screen, one other thing to add is that the screen was a bit smaller than I expected, but I am not mad about that in any way. It is small, but it is big enough to get the job done.

Snap!
Snap!

The joy cons are fun to use. I didn't have any issues with the left joy con at all, but the thumb stick on the right controller felt too low for me. I also thought using the grip that came with the system was only okay as well. All of those problems slowly faded away as I used them more, to the point where know I find them fine. On top of that, having the controllers be separate was actually kinda great, as for I could have my hands wherever I wanted. But it was still good that Nintendo added in the option to go to a normal controller mode as well. Also, even though it sounds stupid and funny, the rumble in the controllers do feel rather nice.

The home menu was very clean. it reminded me of the PS4 home menu, which I liked because they are both to-the-point. It shows you what you want to see and what you need to see and that's that.

The boot times and Switch times are super fast. By switch time I mean the time it takes to switch from tablet to screen and vice versa. It's so fast, you can't really even count. Also, getting the device out of sleeping mode was super fast too.

The cartridge is even smaller than the 3ds cartridges.
The cartridge is even smaller than the 3ds cartridges.

The cartridge is tiny. No I have not tasted it(nor do I plan to,) but one thing I can say is the thing is tiny. You can barely read the logo on the cartridge it's so small. So if you get the system, I hope you don't lose it.

These are the things that I have witnessed with Nintendo's new crazy idea. Their are still more things to find, but this is what I have found day 1. But the big question to ask is, should you get one? For me, I have had a blast with it, but I cannot objectively tell you yes or no, so here are some questions to ask yourself if you are considering.

-How patient are you? Their are not a lot of games out for the Switch, so do research on the games that are out and ask yourself how badly you want to play those game.

-How much do you care about performance? Despite being really cool, the Switch is underpowered compared to other consoles, so you should ask yourself how much value do you put on the aspect of performance.

-How badly do you want to play AAA games? The Switch will most likely not getting many if any of the major games that are releasing for other consoles. Instead, expect the market to be mostly Nintendo games and indie titles.

-How big are your hands? I have normal sized hands, but really long thumbs. I bring this up because the joy cons are not that big in size, so if you have monster hands, than bring that into consideration.

-How mobile are you? Despite some meh hardware, the Switch still makes a great portable device, so if you are constantly travel, than you should think about that as well.

-Do you prefer to buy games digitally or physically? The system only comes with 25 gb of space available. But you can buy a micro sd card and upgrade up to 2 tb. So the two options are really buy games physically, or buy them digitally and get an sd card.

But to wrap it up, I feel that the Switch is a great portable device and a mediocre console. But I still enjoy playing on my monitor. Despite some flaws, I still had a blast with BOTW and some of those flaws were things I got used to. Despite only having one single player game, I do feel that this is a great system for parties as well. In the end, I think that Nintendo has brought in a new way to play games, and if they can handle the following years right, then their new system may just be one of the best in this newest generation of consoles.

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Last-Second Questions On The Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch is having their new console release tomorrow. Their new device is very innovative and its on-the-go console is something that is very interesting. But Nintendo's newest piece of hardware has a lot of drawbacks to it as well, like mediocre hardware and serious downsides to portable gaming. With their console releasing tomorrow, I was thinking about the new console, and some questions came to my head. I wanted to share my questions with you. Now these questions may already be answered, but these questions are mainly things that you should be thinking about as well before accepting or rejecting the Switch.

1. How much third party support will the Switch get?

Now it is no secret that this console is wildly different compared to the PS4 and the Xbox One(for better and for worse.) While consoles use discs, the Switch will use small cartridges. Now these cartridges are very small(and apparently terrible tasting,) but what else is small is the 32 gb of storage they give you(which is expandable to a certain degree.) With all of these factors plus the mediocrity of the hardware and the battery life and downgrade of the console in portable mode, the question comes to mind is how much third party support will this console get? Now Nintendo makes a good amount of games to this day, but first party games plus Skyrim will not make this console sell. The bigger question in the question is how many larger games or triple A games will be made for the Switch? Upcoming triple A games like 'Ghost Recon: Wildlands' and 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' will surely have large files and will take good hardware to run. But the problem is that these games alone will probably take more storage than what the Switch could handle at the beginning. And what about those large files on a small cartridge? The ultimate question is will these larger developers and publishers spend time and money on their very large games to optimize it to Switch hardware, make a physical cartridge smaller than a 3ds cartridge, and cut the fat off games to fit a decent file size to accommodate the people who don't upgrade their storage capacity? Now I do believe that indie games will no doubt be on the Switch, but the question is can the Switch play every game just like the other consoles can?

2. How many multiplayer games will the Switch have?

The Switch will be setting up their online services similarly to the other consoles in the fall. The yearly cost of the Switch online service is only around 17-26 USD, compared to PS Plus or Xbox Gold at 60 USD. But the Switch does play out their membership differently, as for the free game you get in the Switch service will disappear after the month ends and the current way that is set up to chat with friends and invite them is through an app on your phone. But the real question is how many multiplayer games will their be for the Switch? The main reason people buy the online service of the other two consoles is because their are a lot of multiplayer games that release for those two consoles. But the wii u didn't have that many strong multiplayer titles. The only Switch game in its current line-up that stands out to me as a multiplayer-focused game is Splatoon 2. I wonder about this because I want to know if the online service is even worth paying less than thirty USD for if the service mainly offers me one free game that I cannot even keep for later. Then on top of that, the question that comes to mind is if this online service is rather useless(since Nintendo isn't a strong online multiplayer platform,) then how much of the online components of the Switch will be locked behind this paid service. Even if you don't have a membership, the PS4 will still allow some online services to be used, like their store. But will Nintendo take out every online service including the store as part of their service?

3. How noticeable will the downgrades of the Switch be in portable mode?

The Switch has a way where you can play their new console on-the-go. But playing on the go has some serious downsides compared to playing docked in at the station. The battery life is low, the cpu becomes limited, and the overall performance of the games will be lowered off dock than on. But how noticeable will that be to you. This question is probably already answered, showing docked vs. undocked gameplay. But the changes are at different levels of significance to different people. And seeing a video is one thing, but actually trying it out is something different. When you play in portable mode, would you care and spot the lower performance on portable and be mad about, or would you not really care about those differences and are just happy with the fact that you can play these games on-the-go near a wall outlet?

Don't get me wrong, I think that this console is really cool. It is something that is different than anything anyone is doing, you can play console games anywhere, and some games coming out on launch and in the future look very enticing. But their are some serious things holding me back from this console as well; like it's meh hardware, serious problems with the portable mode, and the rather useless online service Nintendo is offering. Their are many other aspects, good and bad, that are included in the Switch as well as the ones talked about here. I just wanted to say a few questions that came to mind about the Switch that may change your mind on whether or not you want to invest 300 USD into Nintendo's new product.

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A Good Game to Play: The Witness

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The Witness is an open world first person puzzle game developed and published by Thekla Inc. The game throws you onto an abandoned island filled with puzzles. The island has different districts, and completing all puzzles in that district will have a laser beam shoot from the district to the top of a mountain in the middle of the island.

The Witness is something that isn't seen a lot nowadays, and that's minimalist. It doesn't throw you into some deep plot where you question why you are the island and why are their stone statues everywhere. It doesn't have a ton of controls with long tutorials on how to use them. It simply just puts onto a deserted island filled with puzzles to solve. That's it. Now some people may not like that aspect of simplicity, but I think that they don't like it because they are so use to complex games filled with tons of dialogue and fast-paced action. To me, The Witness was relaxing. It had a steady, slow pace and didn't bog me down with tutorials or dialogue choices. It simply just puts you on an island and let's you explore.

All of the puzzles consisted of a line going from one point to another.
All of the puzzles consisted of a line going from one point to another.

It's minimalist style is seen everywhere. Their a very little controls in the game, which I found relaxing. I wasn't bogged down on what to memorize. The controls consisted of moving, looking, an interaction button, and running. That's it. I find these controls to be relaxing to me, but I also feel that it could be a great way to introduce a new gamer to controls. It's the simple controls and the slow pace that could help someone who is trying to use keyboard and mouse or a controller. But one way I did find this game to minimalist that I liked a lot was in the tutorials (and lack their of.) The game would just show you the button or buttons. That's it. No animation of the button being pressed or writing next to the button that says,'press here.' It instead says,'here is how you play our game, but you are smart enough to know how to press buttons and you are smart enough to figure out how to play the game yourself.' In so many other games, I get annoyed by long tutorials that treats me like I don't know anything. Even people who never play video games before are smart enough to learn how to use controls, and this game tells me that I am smart enough. Another way this game says that I am capable of doing things is not having tutorials on puzzles. The island is filled with different kinds of puzzles, but the game isn't filled with tutorials on how to solve them. It instead starts you off with a very simple puzzle, and slowly builds you up to harder puzzles while you figure out how to solve those puzzles yourself. It was that self discovery that made me feel great, and I think the way Thekla set up the puzzles is way better than just giving me a tutorial. That self discovery showed me that I am smart enough to figure these things out on my own, and that I don't need anyone else's help.

The beginning puzzles would start out similar to this and would build you up to how each puzzle works.
The beginning puzzles would start out similar to this and would build you up to how each puzzle works.

But it's not tutorials and controls where you can see and hear the minimalist feel. With sounds, their is only one song in the entire game(as part of a challenge) and the only dialogue you hear are either quotes from secrets around the map or from the movies in the theater area. What you do hear a lot though are environmental sounds; like the wind through the trees or the waves hitting shore. It was the lack of dialogue or music that really said to you that you are alone, and you are relaxed (apart from the challenge.) Their is no heightened music to make you stressed, or no dialogue to make you annoyed by. It's just you, on an island, exploring. The art feels a bit minimalist as well. The art feels between realistic and artsy. The trees would look detailed, but rocks or the sky wouldn't. It was this style plus the vibrant colors that really made me love the art of the game.

The vibrant colors of the different areas gave off different moods and made each area feel different.
The vibrant colors of the different areas gave off different moods and made each area feel different.
A bird's-eye-view of the island.
A bird's-eye-view of the island.

But the game didn't go light in other areas(for the better.) The game is filled with puzzles to solve. Despite the over 600 puzzles following the same format of drawing a line from one end to another, the puzzles varied a lot. Some of the puzzles got really hard and I would get stressed, but stepping back from the puzzle and walking around and hearing the environmental sounds did help relax me. Another area that the game didn't go light with was how deep the game felt. The puzzles to solve were all on these square pads, but the world itself was also filled with these line puzzles. You could draw these lines on a river, the roof of a building, the ground, or really anywhere. The island was full of these, plus line puzzles used to see movies, secret audio files, and more. To me, this was the kind of game where the developers would come out in 5 years and say that not everything was found in the game and that the game runs deeper than what people have found. To me, that not knowing how deep it goes is exciting. And another area that this game doesn't go light on is the island. The island itself isn't large, but it is filled with buildings, puzzles, and more. The island consists of many different districts. Some districts have puzzles to solve, some don't. The island is also filled with underground areas and a big area inside the mountain. This island, although small, is packed with places to explore, and its vibrant colors make each area fill distinct from one another. Whether it's the bright pink leaves on a tree of one area, or the bold red and blue flowers that fill the marshes. It's the distinct areas and the freedom to explore that made this game just as fun to explore as it is to solve puzzles.

This game doesn't make you question who you are, where you are, or what you are doing. It's a simple game that gives you puzzles and lets you explore an island. It's heavy on content, but light on controls. It can stress you out with hard puzzles and let's you relax with the calm breeze of the wind going through the trees. It's a game that lets me know that I am smart enough to figure things out on my own.This game may not be for everyone, but everyone should play this game and see what a game can really be like. Not all games are about sports or shooting bad guys. Not all games have to follow a cookie cutter complex story with a twist. It may be hard to try a game that is slowed down and is different from the rest; but if you give it time, you will eventually see why I think that The Witness is a good game to play.

Here are some cool tracking shots of the island on youtube:

Tracking Shot 1

Tracking Shot 2

Tracking Shot 3

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Let's Talk About: Video Game Movies

Ratchet and Clank(far left,) Warcraft(middle left,) Assassin's Creed(middle right,) and Angry Birds(far right) in their movie form.
Ratchet and Clank(far left,) Warcraft(middle left,) Assassin's Creed(middle right,) and Angry Birds(far right) in their movie form.

2016 was a big year for direct video game movies, in which the video game movies I am talking about are the ones based off of a single game and not video game documentaries. 2016 had four video game movies, more than any other year since. In 2016, their was 'Ratchet and Clank','The Angry Birds Movie','Warcraft'(based on World of Warcraft,) and 'Assassin's Creed.' These movies came and went, one even promising that their movie will break the video game movie trope of all game movies being mediocre or terrible. But in the end, these four movies, along with all other video game movies show that making a movie from a video game is a great way to drag a franchise through the dirt and make a lot of money doing it.

Even though Ratchet and Clank had a 20 million dollar budget and only made back 13 million dollars, the other three movies were a huge box office success. 'Warcraft' had a budget of 160 million dollars and it made 433 million dollars in the box office, 'The Angry Birds Movie' took 73 million dollars to make and it made 349 million dollars in box office, and 'Assassin's Creed' had a 125 million dollar budget and it made 212 million dollars in the box office. video game movies can make a whole lot of fat cats a lot richer, but at what costs?

I'll tell you at what cost. Not only do you show a mainstream audience that video games are a joke, you also degrade the franchise of said game and you show that the movie industry and the gaming industry that movies and games are nothing more than cash grabs and not a work of art.

A mainstream audience thinks that video games are for basement dwellers and cannot be taken seriously. With movies like these, you show that the mainstream audience is right. One major way to connect to a mainstream audience to video games is through what they normally do in their lives. A lot of people watch movies, so making a critically good video game movie can get a mainstream audience to see video games as really cool or a way of art. The only problem with that is that the movie is made to make money, not awards. This is seen in every video game movie because sadly, the highest rated video game movie on Rotten Tomatoes is Angry Birds at a staggering 43%. When video game movies get down to 1% on Rotten Tomatoes(which some do), then trying to convey video games as a great past time to a mainstream audience is impossible.

video game movie posters with their Rotten Tomato critic and audience review above them.
video game movie posters with their Rotten Tomato critic and audience review above them.

One video game movie of 2016 that I wanted to really talk about is 'Assassin's Creed.' All the other games came and went silently, but it was this movie where Ubisoft was talking big game. For starters, they got big names behind the film such as Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Not only that, Ubisoft stated that this will be a 'milestone film' and that it will 'break the history of mediocre video game movies.' But Ubisoft themselves knew they were lying or else they wouldn't have given out free movie tickets for buying their remastered games collection. If you are so confident about your movie, then why are you giving out free tickets? People should be excited enough for a good video game movie, so why get the ticket for free? But that was when I was wrong and Ubisoft was right. It turns out 'Assassin's Creed' got a 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and is up for 14 Oscar nominations, breaking the mold of mediocrity of video game movies. Just kidding, it got an 18% on the Tomato Meter and the only thing it broke was Fassbender's reputation. If you do want to see a movie with 14 Oscar nominations and a 93% rating, then go see 'La La Land,' a real movie.

When you give free movie tickets with a game that isn't even a new entry into the series because you know that is the only way people will go watch your movie.
When you give free movie tickets with a game that isn't even a new entry into the series because you know that is the only way people will go watch your movie.

Video game movies are a cancer to both the movie and the gaming industry that degrades both industries just for a profit. These movies only proves to a mainstream audience that video games are a laughing stock. It destroys the franchise name, as well as it destroys movie critic minds with how low movies can get. I don't think that video game movies shouldn't be made at all, I think that the movie should be based off of a great video game story and that the movie should be made with awards on mind, not money.

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Let's Talk About: For Honor Open Beta

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For Honor is set to release on February 14th, but Ubisoft decided to release an open beta of the game for free from February 9th to the 12th. I played For Honor at Gamestop Expo back in September and I had a blast, so I decided to try it out now and see what the game is like inside and out of gameplay. After playing around 4 hours of For Honor, the game I remembered back in September vanished into the wind, and what I did play in the beta is nowhere near as good as when I played 5 months ago.

Back at the expo, I played the game mode Dominion, which is capturing two different areas in the game while fighting grunts in the middle for the third zone. It was a lot of fun for those ten minutes, as for I was working with my team and playing against others who were just as new to the game as I was. The way the game is set up is that if the other team reaches 1000 points, your team stops spawning until you take points away from the other team by capturing other areas. It was fun, as for it was a second chance mechanic that got me on the edge of my seat hoping that the last guy alive on my team could capture a point. We lost the match, but we had fun doing it.

The customizations, upgrades, and loot is different for each hero
The customizations, upgrades, and loot is different for each hero

Dominion in the beta is set up exactly the same way as it was back in September. I played Dominion again, and it was a lot of fun, but this time, the whole second chance feeling was intensified. The match was constantly shifting; we were winning, then they were winning, then we were winning again. It was a lot of fun. The other mode, which is team deathmatch, was also like this too. On top of that, every mode can be played with any amount of bots, which was great because the multiplayer had some network issues, and the bots themselves were a real challenge to fight. On top of that, the hero customizations for each hero were fantastic, changing their weapon and armor stats, abilities, and clothing. So where did it go wrong?

When I first played the beta and was having tons of fun, straight off the bat, I noticed two big aspects I did not like. The first aspect was the faction war map. In the beginning of the game, you choose whether to be a knight, viking, or samurai. Your choice didn't affect what hero you played as, but what it did was put you in a faction. After each match, everyone gets faction points. With those faction points, you can spend it to attack or defend territory. The map gets updated every 6 hours with each faction gaining and losing land, and the map resets every 14 days. This faction war edition is unnecessary, dumb, and something I don't care about. it seems like a waste of time to try your hardest to grab territory and be all strategic on something that doesn't really matter, just for it to reset and you getting some cosmetic items as a reward. The other aspect was the Rainbow Six: Siege like approach to the game. The season pass will get you new heroes, cosmetic items, and boosters. Just from this, I can already tell that the microtransactions and the season pass will be set up like a free to play game, and that what For Honor gives me at $60 with not be a complete game. Content like heroes should be given to you for free, something that a game like Overwatch does well. But with the fun gameplay and the good use of bots, I thought that those aspects will be something that won't affect me harshly with my experience.

The different tiers of payment, which is just a bunch of aesthetic items, heroes, early access to heroes, and boosters.
The different tiers of payment, which is just a bunch of aesthetic items, heroes, early access to heroes, and boosters.
The faction map, which gaining or losing territory is meaningless and doesn't affect the matches in any way.
The faction map, which gaining or losing territory is meaningless and doesn't affect the matches in any way.

But then I played some more, and that was when I decided I won't get this game any time soon unless it goes on a good sale. What made me come to that decision? The gameplay. The more I played, the less fun I was having and instead, I was just frustrated. When you fight, you have the option to go into a focus mode, in which you concentrate on one enemy. In concentration mode, you can do all of the blocking and special attacks, while outside of this,you can only dodge and do basic attacks. The problem with this is that if two people go against you at the same time, you are guaranteed to lose. They concentrate on you, but you can't concentrate on them, because their are two of them. This was constantly happening to me, and the only thing I could do is run. But running was hard itself, because if two enemies are attacking you, you keep stumbling, which allows them to attack you more. Whenever this happened(and it happened a lot,) I would be incredibly frustrated. But even the one-on-one combat frustrated me as well. Enemies can spam a special move over and over that doesn't allow you to block or dodge until they kill you. One time when I was playing, one person I was playing against would bash me with this powerful bash that i couldn't block or dodge, which would knock me on the ground. He would attack me as I was getting up, and right when I was able to move, he did it again. And again. And again. that was when I deleted the beta and decided to write this blog.

For Honor(beta) is a game that will give you two hours of fun, then countless hours of frustration. Despite some good mechanics, fun hero customizations, and a good system set up with bots, the faction war map, microtransactions, and multiplayer frustration made me want to throw things in my room. I can't tell you if the singleplayer will be good or not. But if the problems in multiplayer are not fixed, then I can say that the multiplayer-which is the main mode of For Honor- will not be fun for casual players.

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Let's Talk About: Apocalypse Now(The Game)

On January 25th, 2017, Erebus, LLC put up a new project onto kickstarter. What is this item you asked? It is none other than a game adaptation of Apocalypse Now, the famous war flick made by Francis Ford Coppola. When I heard about this, I got extremely excited, even though I have never seen the movie before. What got me excited was the fantastic trailer, and the fact that Coppola himself would help make this game. This got me excited enough for me to go watch the film(the original, not the redux). By the end of the film, I was wondering how they were going to make a game out of this. But going back to the kickstarter page, I found a 3 minute video of the developers talking about their game. After watching that, I just knew that this game will not be like any other game since or now.

When I think of a movie video game, I think of the game putting in way more action then the movie had and basically just slapping the name onto some generic game. I think of taking a 2 hour movie and stretching it of its identity for the sake of gameplay. After seeing Apocalypse Now, I thought that the game would be the polar opposite of the movie, because the movie didn't even have a lot of action scenes compared to other war movies. I thought not only are they going to screw up this game, they are going to drag a very well known movie through the dirt with it as well. But that all went away when I heard the developers talk about what this game is going to be.

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When I saw this video, straight off the bat I noticed how many different clips of the movie were in the video, which was a good start. It showed me that they want to stay as close the material as possible. After a bit of talking, a message from Ford Coppola himself came on and talked about how he wants the game to make you go mad just like the way the film made him mad. This made me sure that Coppola will have a a big say in this game, which made it even better. Next, a developer talked about how war games are not treated with respect in video games, which just made me feel even better about this game. But what really turned the tables for me was when another developer said,"We are not making a shooter, we are making a survival-horror experience." When he said that, a ray of hope appeared from the clouds and shined onto this game. Thank God that that this isn't a shooter, which is really weird to say for a war game. The movie wasn't an action film, it was a river boat ride down insanity, which each stop being crazier than the last. That was what the movie was, and that is what the game is planning to be, which makes me so happy. Just to prove that this game isn't a shooter even more is that the same developer also says that they are crowdfunding the game just because they know that a traditional publisher would turn the game into a shooter. Just knowing that they didn't go to a publisher just for that reason shows how much they are willing to sacrifice just to make sure that this game will try to live up to the movie it's spawned off of, and it just gives me even more hope that this game will be a great game if it comes out. But that leads me to the biggest problem I have with this game; it isn't scheduled to come out until 2020. 2020! I know that plans change, and this game may not even come out(if it doesn't reach its $900,000 goal in time), but 2020 is just way too long for me.

I wanted to talk about this because I feel that this may have an impact on movie video games and war games in general. Apocalypse Now is a great movie, and I think that it should be treated with respect. Luckily, Erebus, LLC answered that call by trying its hardest to stay true to the original film, and even getting Coppola to help out with this project. Being crowdfunded just to stay with their plan on the game and being a survival-horror experience instead of a basic shooter gives me hope that this will be a great game. If Erebus play the death cards right(which so far, they have), then not only will this set the standard for movie video games, but will set the standard for war games in general.

Here is a link to the kickstarter campaign:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fringerider/apocalypse-now-the-game

And here is a link to their website:https://apocalypsenow.com/

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Let's Talk About:Emotes in Post-Multiplayer Matches

Their has been a recent trend in multiplayer games, most notably shooters, that involve post game emotes. If you don't know, an emote is a way to express your emotions by body movements. Doing such things like acting like you scored a touchdown, fake-slitting your throat, etc. A lot of games have emotes, but I mainly wanted to talk about the games that have them after multiplayer matches. Some games that have these post-game emotes include: Doom, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and Rainbow Six Siege.

The reason why I wanted to talk about this specific kind of emote is because in my opinion, these are the worst kind of emotes. I exclude Six Siege from this list as for their emotes are few and not the worst, but I fear that soon the emotes in that game will become bad. But the other three games are terrible with emotes.

Their are two reasons why I hate this new trend: the game loses its maturity with the game and these emotes are sometimes indirectly tied with micro transactions.

Is this part of the game franchise that popularized first person shooters?
Is this part of the game franchise that popularized first person shooters?

When I played Doom single player, I remember that despite silly little things like 'Demonic Invasion In Progress' on a monitor, that the game was serious and seriously badass. One of the best things to me in the game was going through hell and finding the recordings of how you were a killing machine that could not be killed because you were just that epic. Then I went to multiplayer, and all that maturity and badassery fell when I play and at the end I do the salsa. It pains me to talk poorly about Doom, but I think that this game is the worst with its emotes as for their are so many, and they are all so childish. I'm trying to play a game that puts me in the boots of a genocidal machine, but it instead treats me like I am a child and says,'Hey! You can dab!' The title of the game literally means death and destruction and instead i'm doing a barnyard dance.

Is this part of the game franchise that has been the top selling game franchise for three years in a row?
Is this part of the game franchise that has been the top selling game franchise for three years in a row?

But the one thing that Doom doesn't do is tie their emotes to a loot chest system and can be opened with real money. The same can't be said for Call of Duty, which started back with Black Ops 3. When Black Ops 3 put in their loot chest system, it wasn't half bad. Despite needing to play a lot to open them, the loot chests only had cosmetics and their was no way that you could buy them with real money. But as of now, their is a currency system set up and their are at least 20 weapons. I'm getting off topic, but the point is that as the black market was slowly getting worse, they were adding in new taunts, which were harder and harder to get. I know people are not spending their cod points just to get taunts(or at least I hope), but the point is that not only are developers throwing in trash into the game, they are actually making it hard to access that trash and making a buck in the process.

The real question to whoever is making these taunts be put into the game is do you want to make a cheap buck and 'try to stay hip and cool with the young kids?' Or do you want your game to be taken seriously, because adding these post game taunts makes me think poorly of your game. If you want your game to be remembered in the future, then I would recommend having your game being remembered as that one game where you can do ridiculous dance moves after making a mini genocide.

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