IGN did an article named 'A History of Gaming's Most Shameless Rip-Offs'. After reading it I did the stupid thing of actually reading comments on a IGN piece. I think they have killed off a couple of brain cells, anyway that's beside the point and I should know by now that IGN comments are full of trolls. Moving swiftly on to my point, the majority of people seem to think that 'ripping off' games is a bad thing. I am not going to deny that a lot of games released have been near enough carbon copies of other games with slightly altered art work, to say that certain games are any more than that is ridiculous. Does that make whoever copied these games in the wrong? I wouldn't say so.
Say I was to start learning to develop games, I more than likely wouldn't start creating my own games straight away, I would attempt to recreate games that all ready exist, and if I did that it would be work that I actually created so is it wrong that I try to sell it? Again, I wouldn't say so. If I was to create a pong like game and attempted to sell it, I wouldn't see it as ripping off the game. Obviously I wouldn't say that the concept of the game was my idea, only that is was my recreation of the game. I can't remember who said it but 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. All these games stated in the IGN article are doing exactly that. Recreating a game that already exists shouldn't be looked down upon as a lot of people seem to do. These developers may start off replicating games but they may just move and to create that next big game you love. So at the end of the day just let developers develop. It is their job and/or hobby after all. Today they may be making a 'rip off', but the knowledge and experience they get from making them may lead to making that next big title tomorrow.
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Saturday, 3 March 2012
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Are gamers too cynical and unforgiving these days?
Over the past few months we have seen a number of new games out, I mean actual new games rather than sequels to older games, such as Homefront, Bulletstorm, Dead Island and Rage. I can't talk for Rage as I have yet to play it but will do in the near future (probably christmas). Anyway even though each one of these games had rocky launches and lack luster reviews, they are pretty decent games. But as these are unknown titles the majority are more willing to automatically shun these games, while the likes of your CoDs and Battlefields among other well known titles I can't think of right now can get away with not so brilliant launches.
This mentality among gamers is wrong. If you are going to shun a game for a crappy launch, it should be done for every game. While I'm not saying everyone does this of course, there are a lot that do. I believe in the fact that not every game is going to have that perfect launch that they planned as mistakes happen, there's hardware issues, the list could go on. Dead Island is a perfect example of this, they had a terrible launch, especially their Steam launch (I'm still not sure how they ended up releasing the completely wrong version of the game but I'm not going to get in to that rant) but behind this crappy launch was infact a pretty awesome game. The point I'm getting to is you have to put faith in developers to fix problems when they occur, this is the exact reason patching of games was invented (along with with adding new content of course).
Along with that people these days seem a lot less forgiving with new titles than franchises. My theory on this is if we keep shunning new games the market won't change and get stale and we will be left with nothing but the same old generic game over and over. It is getting to that stage with shooters right now. There are many decent shooters out their but because they aren't Call of Duty they get completely over shadowed by months of advertising for the same game. Homefront is a prime example of this, the game in itself was a good game in it's own right and yes it had a bad start MP wise with server issues. But tell me other well known shooter franchises have never had problems at release. At the end of the day, they worked on it and sorted it out. The single player on the game was pretty good, the ending was a bit disapointing as it could have went on a bit longer, but it had an interesting storyline and decent gameplay.
Bulletstorm while it got over looked some what, it did have some momentum behind it but the hype about the game lasted ... well it didn't last. I'm sorry but that game put fun back in to games. Far to many games are trying to go all hollywood with their almost life like graphics and serious storylines. This game gave you guns put a load of enemies in your way and told you to go nuts. You could sit and complain about the storyline which I think was fairly decent, but it didn't really matter. The game focused on gameplay and I believe it truely pulled it off. Bulletstorm to me was a warm up for DNF. The only thing I didn't really like in the new Duke game was the fact you only got 2 weapons. Duke is supposed to have a massive arsenal of weapons. Putting that aside the game was fun.
It just seems people are far too cynical and unforgiving when it comes to games these days. If you don't get what I'm on about go read comments on damn near any review site and look at the amount of fanboys ripping on shit and abusive flame wars. There's always going to be the 'my dads harder than your dad' kind of flaming but people are generally full blown dicks these days. I am getting to the stage where I'm almost ashamed to call myself a gamer these days. Which is why I have moved away from the mainstream side of things and started to show smaller and indie games a lot more love. I for one would rather support developers with new original ideas even if they don't come across perfect over the franchises that chun out slightly tweaked games year after year. If you are going to update a game do it on your current game we don't need a yearly update for £40. Take Valve or Blizzard most of their games are old as balls but because of the support they have given their games over the years. People love them.
At the end of the day this industry needs innovation not repetition. Innovative ideas are rarely perfect on their first attempt which is why it keeps the industry moving. Games are supposed to be an investment, some thing that you can go back and play in a few months, years or even decades. There are games I still play from the days of early Nintendo and Sega, because they are good games. Will I be playing Black Ops 20 years from now? Probably not. I can't say for sure but I pretty certain I won't be. Half Life, Doom, Red Faction, Painkiller, Command & Conquer, all these games have been out for year yet I keep going back to them. Was it because they kept releasing pretty much the same games over and over? Hell no it wasn't. It was because they were creative and innovative would I enjoy them as much now if they were just a carbon copy of some other game? No. These games were not perfect, but they are great games so the flaws get over looked.
This mentality among gamers is wrong. If you are going to shun a game for a crappy launch, it should be done for every game. While I'm not saying everyone does this of course, there are a lot that do. I believe in the fact that not every game is going to have that perfect launch that they planned as mistakes happen, there's hardware issues, the list could go on. Dead Island is a perfect example of this, they had a terrible launch, especially their Steam launch (I'm still not sure how they ended up releasing the completely wrong version of the game but I'm not going to get in to that rant) but behind this crappy launch was infact a pretty awesome game. The point I'm getting to is you have to put faith in developers to fix problems when they occur, this is the exact reason patching of games was invented (along with with adding new content of course).
Along with that people these days seem a lot less forgiving with new titles than franchises. My theory on this is if we keep shunning new games the market won't change and get stale and we will be left with nothing but the same old generic game over and over. It is getting to that stage with shooters right now. There are many decent shooters out their but because they aren't Call of Duty they get completely over shadowed by months of advertising for the same game. Homefront is a prime example of this, the game in itself was a good game in it's own right and yes it had a bad start MP wise with server issues. But tell me other well known shooter franchises have never had problems at release. At the end of the day, they worked on it and sorted it out. The single player on the game was pretty good, the ending was a bit disapointing as it could have went on a bit longer, but it had an interesting storyline and decent gameplay.
Bulletstorm while it got over looked some what, it did have some momentum behind it but the hype about the game lasted ... well it didn't last. I'm sorry but that game put fun back in to games. Far to many games are trying to go all hollywood with their almost life like graphics and serious storylines. This game gave you guns put a load of enemies in your way and told you to go nuts. You could sit and complain about the storyline which I think was fairly decent, but it didn't really matter. The game focused on gameplay and I believe it truely pulled it off. Bulletstorm to me was a warm up for DNF. The only thing I didn't really like in the new Duke game was the fact you only got 2 weapons. Duke is supposed to have a massive arsenal of weapons. Putting that aside the game was fun.
It just seems people are far too cynical and unforgiving when it comes to games these days. If you don't get what I'm on about go read comments on damn near any review site and look at the amount of fanboys ripping on shit and abusive flame wars. There's always going to be the 'my dads harder than your dad' kind of flaming but people are generally full blown dicks these days. I am getting to the stage where I'm almost ashamed to call myself a gamer these days. Which is why I have moved away from the mainstream side of things and started to show smaller and indie games a lot more love. I for one would rather support developers with new original ideas even if they don't come across perfect over the franchises that chun out slightly tweaked games year after year. If you are going to update a game do it on your current game we don't need a yearly update for £40. Take Valve or Blizzard most of their games are old as balls but because of the support they have given their games over the years. People love them.
At the end of the day this industry needs innovation not repetition. Innovative ideas are rarely perfect on their first attempt which is why it keeps the industry moving. Games are supposed to be an investment, some thing that you can go back and play in a few months, years or even decades. There are games I still play from the days of early Nintendo and Sega, because they are good games. Will I be playing Black Ops 20 years from now? Probably not. I can't say for sure but I pretty certain I won't be. Half Life, Doom, Red Faction, Painkiller, Command & Conquer, all these games have been out for year yet I keep going back to them. Was it because they kept releasing pretty much the same games over and over? Hell no it wasn't. It was because they were creative and innovative would I enjoy them as much now if they were just a carbon copy of some other game? No. These games were not perfect, but they are great games so the flaws get over looked.
Monday, 7 November 2011
My top 10 games of all time.
This list is in no particular order, it is just 10 of my favourite games some are newer than others.
Guild Wars
I shall start the list with a MMO under the name of Guild Wars, I believe this game has been the under dog in the MMO market especially compared to the likes of WoW. Yes it does have quite the core fan base. But any casual gamer if they have heard of it and a lot of them will tell you no. The game is getting on a bit now as it was released mid 2000's, 05 if memory serves me correctly as of probably beginning of this year I finally escaped it's grasp on me, yeah I do have a few titles left to grind away at before I can say I have absolutely nothing left to do in game, to be honest I can live with my legacy left behind in the Guild Wars world and until Guild Wars 2 comes out I probably won't be getting back in to it. I have dabbled in a number of other MMO's but Guild Wars was the only one that took hundreds of hours of my life from me. I still to this day don't know why I was so addicted to this game but it does hold a special place in my heart.
Half-Life
The game that started Valves journey in to the hearts of many, many gamers. This game was probably the first game I played that had quite an in depth story behind it. Everything I had played before this game shooter wise, the story was 'There's the bad guy go kill him. Why? Because he's the bad guy.' While I still love those kind of games that essentially just give you a gun and tell you to go nuts, this game changed that. There was a lot of thought effort and time put in to the story, not saying it was the first one to do that of course it was my first story telling shooter game. I am much more of a fan of this game than the sequel. Half-Life 2 I still love that game to bits but there is far to many holes in the gap between Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Valve totally could of done other games to fill in the missing pieces. Even if they had done a sequel to Blue Shift and Opposing Force that would have been more than enough game to explain a little more. I still think they should do a Blue Shift 2 with Barney and the events running up to Half-Life 2. You start off and he is undercover with the combine. You could have easily made a game with Barney and his time under cover with the combine, watch him make choices he later regrets so he doesn't blow his cover. I could sit down and come up with many situations you could make a story for a new Blue Shift or Opposing Force game. It has so many missing links you could fill in and you know from Valves huge fan base that people would be all over the games should they be released. I'm gonna stop my little rant there anyway and go play through Half Life up to Episode 2 as soon as I'm done writing this.
Road Rash 2
Now I am going back even further in time to one of the games from my childhood which I used to play the crap out of. Road Rash 2 for my Sega Mega Drive. I loved this game, it's racing motor bikes while trying to beat your opponent with bats and chains what is not to like. My only gripe at this game is the lack of save ability, but that's more at the console than the game it's self. Saying that though if I was able to save my game and beat it, the replay value probably wouldn't be as high as it was. Saving on this game involved leaving the console on with the game paused. All that time spent playing this game just so I could get the best bike available, I believe I got it about 4 times but because it took me so long to save up for it, I never got that used to the bike and crashed a lot due me not being used to the handling and speed of the bike usually ending up in me getting game over.
Final Fantasy IX
That's right Final Fantasy 9 not 7. Not to say 7 isn't a good game but it's not my favourite. I was a little late to jump on the Final Fantasy bandwagon getting into it with the release of the 9th in the series. But it is my favourite of all the Final Fantasy games. I have played it through so many times I could probably sit down and tell you the entire story start to finish.
Burnout Series
Burnout is probably my all time favourite racing game. Probably Burnout 3 being favourite of the lot. It's the most fun you can have crashing cars without being hospital bound.
Deathspank
It is a small(ish) game from developers Hothead Games. I am including all three games as this entry as well. I fricking love Deathspank and his random humour, abuse of orphans and just the generally weird ass hack and slash adventure. If you haven't heard or played any of the Deathspank games, be it the original, Thongs of Virtue or the latest adventure with our random hero, The Baconing. I suggest go invest in one of them, I believe they cost round about a tenner for each game. It's definitely worth the money.
Team Fortress 2
I have been a fan of Team Fortress since the days of TFC, never did play the quake mod though. I have only one gripe again TF2 and believe it or not it's not about hats. It's about how escort maps such as Hunted were never brought along with all the other game modes. For those of you unaware of this map type. Basically one person was a VIP which one team had to protect while getting them to a certain area to win the game while the other team had to assassinate them. I spent more time playing escort maps than any other type. I should really go look see if modders have made custom maps with escort objectives. I realise we have payload which is technically an escort type game but it's not the same. Anyway rant aside, this game is well it's fun as hell whether you enjoy using the variety of weapons available or just using the stock loadouts through one of the many vanilla servers which don't allow anything but stock weapons.
Left 4 Dead
Third entry in my list from Valve. This doesn't really much explanation why it was put in my list. It's killing zombies with your buddies. How can you not like it.
Unreal Tournament
This game was probably the first multiplayer competitive shooter I played. Epic totally need to revive this game and when they do they need to make it just a tournament, no storys like UT3, just pure good old fashion killing the other guy purely for the fact that you want to be better than them. They have Unreal if they want to put a story behind the game, Unreal Tournament should be kept as a Tournment nothing more nothing less. Anyway before I get in to a full blown rant I have to admit this game is fantastic, and whether you pick up the original or any other version of the game it doesn't matter.
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge
While this is technically an expansion pack, one which I dub greatest expansion in existence, you can argue with me all you want you will never change my mind on the matter, I believe this game could have easily stood by itself without a problem. This game along with with Unreal Tournament was one of the games that got me into lan gaming, primarily with my brothers, while I haven't been to a lan for ages as it's a lot easier just to play online, I used to love sitting in playing over lans trying to out do one another. Though I hated playing my younger brother as he was always Yuri and made sure he was near enough to both Allied and Soviet bases so he could just send in Yuri to get their construction yard and get the best of each faction. I always swayed away from Yuri and went either Allied or Soviet, had a solid plan for each team though. If I was Allied it was simple as getting a shed load of rocketeers and prism tanks. If I was Soviet I just defended my base until I had a ridiculous amount of Mammoth Tanks, I would go for a minimum of 50, this would be followed by the complete and utter destruction of anything that got in my way, while this massacrer was in progress I would be preparing a second wave of Mammoth Tanks to join them.
Guild Wars
I shall start the list with a MMO under the name of Guild Wars, I believe this game has been the under dog in the MMO market especially compared to the likes of WoW. Yes it does have quite the core fan base. But any casual gamer if they have heard of it and a lot of them will tell you no. The game is getting on a bit now as it was released mid 2000's, 05 if memory serves me correctly as of probably beginning of this year I finally escaped it's grasp on me, yeah I do have a few titles left to grind away at before I can say I have absolutely nothing left to do in game, to be honest I can live with my legacy left behind in the Guild Wars world and until Guild Wars 2 comes out I probably won't be getting back in to it. I have dabbled in a number of other MMO's but Guild Wars was the only one that took hundreds of hours of my life from me. I still to this day don't know why I was so addicted to this game but it does hold a special place in my heart.
Half-Life
The game that started Valves journey in to the hearts of many, many gamers. This game was probably the first game I played that had quite an in depth story behind it. Everything I had played before this game shooter wise, the story was 'There's the bad guy go kill him. Why? Because he's the bad guy.' While I still love those kind of games that essentially just give you a gun and tell you to go nuts, this game changed that. There was a lot of thought effort and time put in to the story, not saying it was the first one to do that of course it was my first story telling shooter game. I am much more of a fan of this game than the sequel. Half-Life 2 I still love that game to bits but there is far to many holes in the gap between Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Valve totally could of done other games to fill in the missing pieces. Even if they had done a sequel to Blue Shift and Opposing Force that would have been more than enough game to explain a little more. I still think they should do a Blue Shift 2 with Barney and the events running up to Half-Life 2. You start off and he is undercover with the combine. You could have easily made a game with Barney and his time under cover with the combine, watch him make choices he later regrets so he doesn't blow his cover. I could sit down and come up with many situations you could make a story for a new Blue Shift or Opposing Force game. It has so many missing links you could fill in and you know from Valves huge fan base that people would be all over the games should they be released. I'm gonna stop my little rant there anyway and go play through Half Life up to Episode 2 as soon as I'm done writing this.
Road Rash 2
Now I am going back even further in time to one of the games from my childhood which I used to play the crap out of. Road Rash 2 for my Sega Mega Drive. I loved this game, it's racing motor bikes while trying to beat your opponent with bats and chains what is not to like. My only gripe at this game is the lack of save ability, but that's more at the console than the game it's self. Saying that though if I was able to save my game and beat it, the replay value probably wouldn't be as high as it was. Saving on this game involved leaving the console on with the game paused. All that time spent playing this game just so I could get the best bike available, I believe I got it about 4 times but because it took me so long to save up for it, I never got that used to the bike and crashed a lot due me not being used to the handling and speed of the bike usually ending up in me getting game over.
Final Fantasy IX
That's right Final Fantasy 9 not 7. Not to say 7 isn't a good game but it's not my favourite. I was a little late to jump on the Final Fantasy bandwagon getting into it with the release of the 9th in the series. But it is my favourite of all the Final Fantasy games. I have played it through so many times I could probably sit down and tell you the entire story start to finish.
Burnout Series
Burnout is probably my all time favourite racing game. Probably Burnout 3 being favourite of the lot. It's the most fun you can have crashing cars without being hospital bound.
Deathspank
It is a small(ish) game from developers Hothead Games. I am including all three games as this entry as well. I fricking love Deathspank and his random humour, abuse of orphans and just the generally weird ass hack and slash adventure. If you haven't heard or played any of the Deathspank games, be it the original, Thongs of Virtue or the latest adventure with our random hero, The Baconing. I suggest go invest in one of them, I believe they cost round about a tenner for each game. It's definitely worth the money.
Team Fortress 2
I have been a fan of Team Fortress since the days of TFC, never did play the quake mod though. I have only one gripe again TF2 and believe it or not it's not about hats. It's about how escort maps such as Hunted were never brought along with all the other game modes. For those of you unaware of this map type. Basically one person was a VIP which one team had to protect while getting them to a certain area to win the game while the other team had to assassinate them. I spent more time playing escort maps than any other type. I should really go look see if modders have made custom maps with escort objectives. I realise we have payload which is technically an escort type game but it's not the same. Anyway rant aside, this game is well it's fun as hell whether you enjoy using the variety of weapons available or just using the stock loadouts through one of the many vanilla servers which don't allow anything but stock weapons.
Left 4 Dead
Third entry in my list from Valve. This doesn't really much explanation why it was put in my list. It's killing zombies with your buddies. How can you not like it.
Unreal Tournament
This game was probably the first multiplayer competitive shooter I played. Epic totally need to revive this game and when they do they need to make it just a tournament, no storys like UT3, just pure good old fashion killing the other guy purely for the fact that you want to be better than them. They have Unreal if they want to put a story behind the game, Unreal Tournament should be kept as a Tournment nothing more nothing less. Anyway before I get in to a full blown rant I have to admit this game is fantastic, and whether you pick up the original or any other version of the game it doesn't matter.
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge
While this is technically an expansion pack, one which I dub greatest expansion in existence, you can argue with me all you want you will never change my mind on the matter, I believe this game could have easily stood by itself without a problem. This game along with with Unreal Tournament was one of the games that got me into lan gaming, primarily with my brothers, while I haven't been to a lan for ages as it's a lot easier just to play online, I used to love sitting in playing over lans trying to out do one another. Though I hated playing my younger brother as he was always Yuri and made sure he was near enough to both Allied and Soviet bases so he could just send in Yuri to get their construction yard and get the best of each faction. I always swayed away from Yuri and went either Allied or Soviet, had a solid plan for each team though. If I was Allied it was simple as getting a shed load of rocketeers and prism tanks. If I was Soviet I just defended my base until I had a ridiculous amount of Mammoth Tanks, I would go for a minimum of 50, this would be followed by the complete and utter destruction of anything that got in my way, while this massacrer was in progress I would be preparing a second wave of Mammoth Tanks to join them.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
PC Versus Console Gaming.
I came across an article on Gamerant about Id's John Carmack and his statement about PCs not being the lead platform for gaming and how Valve disagree. This obviously started I'd say a discussion but was more of a flame war about which was better PC gaming or console gaming. So here we are at the age old debate about the matter, so here are my thoughts about the matter.
While I am primarily a PC gamer, I do agree with John Carmack, and actually believe PC has never really been the lead platform for games, consoles have always been ahead, you can take this back to the days of early Nintendos and Segas and compare them to the likes of Amiga and Commodore, both of which were good platforms for gaming but I am sure consoles were ahead in sales back then as well. The fact of the matter is that console gaming will always be popular due to the fact of it's simplicity. What I mean by this is that you can go out and buy whatever console you want and buy a game for said console and you can play straight away. With PC gaming after you buy a disc of what ever game you want to play, you have to sit there and install the game so you are waiting 10 - 20 minutes or however long before you can actually play your game. That is 1-0 to console.
We then have the debate about cost and a lot of people have this notion that if you want to game on PC you have to spend thousands. While yes you can spend thousands if you're the kind of person that needs to have the latest tech possible, you will spend a ridiculous amount over the years. I bring up a point that console gaming could also cost a ridiculous amount if you want to have the latest version of which ever console you choose and go out and buy a new Playstation or Xbox etc every time they release a new one (and I don't mean PS2 to PS3 or Xbox to 360, I mean buying a new one when say you have a 250GB version and they bring out a 320GB version. There are people out there who do this, just as there are people who upgrade their computer every 3 months). The point I am getting to is that PCs don't have to cost £2,000. You can quite easily upgrade every 3-4 years and still have no problem running the latest games. The last time I upgraded was maybe 2 years ago (I can't remember so don't quote me on that). That was getting me up to a dual core chip, 4GB of Ram and a Radeon 5770 graphics card (which is the very minimum I would suggest for pc gaming, I am not sure of the Nvidia equivalent) costing me about £300 or so while it won't run the newest games at the highest graphical settings it runs them perfectly fine at the default settings, which is probably about on par with console graphics. Yes a 'gaming' PC is more expensive than any console counter part, but you also get a pc with your gaming platform if you choose to go down this road unlike consoles.
You could also debate the matter of exclusive games for consoles, and yes there are quite a few out there (and I'm not going to get in to a rant about Xbox exclusives that should be available for PC through GFWL). I would have to say PC probably do have a lot more exclusive games than consoles combined such as the obvious ones like WoW, Starcraft, Diablo and Total War series. Then you have the likes of Quake, Unreal, Hard Reset and Red Orchestra making an appearance on the shooter side of things. There are literally hundred, possibly thousands of PC exclusive games. Where as consoles each have very few in comparison.
It is obviously going to be easier for developers to create games for consoles as they have specific hardware specs so they only have to make one setting suited to that, while on PC they have to be able to support both high and low quality graphics. Which is why I believe PC gamers are seemingly more loyal and appreciative to companies that look after them, just look at Valve and Blizzards fan base.
Last point I am going to make is the keyboard and mouse versus controller debate. Frankly I find this stupid to be quite honest. Some people find controllers easier to use than keyboard and mouse and vice versa. Unless you are in to competitive gaming it doesn't matter. I prefer controllers for games which involve fighting, racing along with rpgs (final fantasy etc..), I prefer keyboard and mouse for shooters and mmos. They have made controllers compatible with PCs, it seems kb+m is starting to make an appearance over on the console side of things with the release of CS:GO for the Playstation. Why it took a pc developers to bring this to console god knows. But hopefully it's a sign of things to come so we can once and for all stop this pointless debate as it doesn't matter.
At the end of the day, there will always be both PC and console gamer, and this debate always seems to happen when either a) a 'next gen' console is released, which is when the "death of PC gaming" is usually predicted or b) when a consoles are showing their age which is when the PC gamers seem to come out of hiding and go on about how consoles are dated tech and pc gaming is the way forward. We see to be getting toward the latter right now.
I will leave you with this final thought. If you enjoy gaming just go out there and game. It doesn't matter if you play on PC, Xbox, Playstation, Wii, Gamecube, N64, SNES, NES, Dreamcast, Saturn, Genesis, Master System, PSP, DS, Gameboy, Game Gear...... are we starting to see my point here. Stop bitching about how the console you don't have is worse than the one you have. Just play it and have fun, enjoy it. You know the reason behind them being created in the first place.
Fanboys piss me off!
While I am primarily a PC gamer, I do agree with John Carmack, and actually believe PC has never really been the lead platform for games, consoles have always been ahead, you can take this back to the days of early Nintendos and Segas and compare them to the likes of Amiga and Commodore, both of which were good platforms for gaming but I am sure consoles were ahead in sales back then as well. The fact of the matter is that console gaming will always be popular due to the fact of it's simplicity. What I mean by this is that you can go out and buy whatever console you want and buy a game for said console and you can play straight away. With PC gaming after you buy a disc of what ever game you want to play, you have to sit there and install the game so you are waiting 10 - 20 minutes or however long before you can actually play your game. That is 1-0 to console.
We then have the debate about cost and a lot of people have this notion that if you want to game on PC you have to spend thousands. While yes you can spend thousands if you're the kind of person that needs to have the latest tech possible, you will spend a ridiculous amount over the years. I bring up a point that console gaming could also cost a ridiculous amount if you want to have the latest version of which ever console you choose and go out and buy a new Playstation or Xbox etc every time they release a new one (and I don't mean PS2 to PS3 or Xbox to 360, I mean buying a new one when say you have a 250GB version and they bring out a 320GB version. There are people out there who do this, just as there are people who upgrade their computer every 3 months). The point I am getting to is that PCs don't have to cost £2,000. You can quite easily upgrade every 3-4 years and still have no problem running the latest games. The last time I upgraded was maybe 2 years ago (I can't remember so don't quote me on that). That was getting me up to a dual core chip, 4GB of Ram and a Radeon 5770 graphics card (which is the very minimum I would suggest for pc gaming, I am not sure of the Nvidia equivalent) costing me about £300 or so while it won't run the newest games at the highest graphical settings it runs them perfectly fine at the default settings, which is probably about on par with console graphics. Yes a 'gaming' PC is more expensive than any console counter part, but you also get a pc with your gaming platform if you choose to go down this road unlike consoles.
You could also debate the matter of exclusive games for consoles, and yes there are quite a few out there (and I'm not going to get in to a rant about Xbox exclusives that should be available for PC through GFWL). I would have to say PC probably do have a lot more exclusive games than consoles combined such as the obvious ones like WoW, Starcraft, Diablo and Total War series. Then you have the likes of Quake, Unreal, Hard Reset and Red Orchestra making an appearance on the shooter side of things. There are literally hundred, possibly thousands of PC exclusive games. Where as consoles each have very few in comparison.
It is obviously going to be easier for developers to create games for consoles as they have specific hardware specs so they only have to make one setting suited to that, while on PC they have to be able to support both high and low quality graphics. Which is why I believe PC gamers are seemingly more loyal and appreciative to companies that look after them, just look at Valve and Blizzards fan base.
Last point I am going to make is the keyboard and mouse versus controller debate. Frankly I find this stupid to be quite honest. Some people find controllers easier to use than keyboard and mouse and vice versa. Unless you are in to competitive gaming it doesn't matter. I prefer controllers for games which involve fighting, racing along with rpgs (final fantasy etc..), I prefer keyboard and mouse for shooters and mmos. They have made controllers compatible with PCs, it seems kb+m is starting to make an appearance over on the console side of things with the release of CS:GO for the Playstation. Why it took a pc developers to bring this to console god knows. But hopefully it's a sign of things to come so we can once and for all stop this pointless debate as it doesn't matter.
At the end of the day, there will always be both PC and console gamer, and this debate always seems to happen when either a) a 'next gen' console is released, which is when the "death of PC gaming" is usually predicted or b) when a consoles are showing their age which is when the PC gamers seem to come out of hiding and go on about how consoles are dated tech and pc gaming is the way forward. We see to be getting toward the latter right now.
I will leave you with this final thought. If you enjoy gaming just go out there and game. It doesn't matter if you play on PC, Xbox, Playstation, Wii, Gamecube, N64, SNES, NES, Dreamcast, Saturn, Genesis, Master System, PSP, DS, Gameboy, Game Gear...... are we starting to see my point here. Stop bitching about how the console you don't have is worse than the one you have. Just play it and have fun, enjoy it. You know the reason behind them being created in the first place.
Fanboys piss me off!
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
The state of the gaming industry these days.
So I have read a few articles lately advertising downloadable content for games which aren't even out yet, this mentality seems to be spreading throughout a whole bunch of developers as of late. I for one hate the whole 'we have content prepared the which we could quite easily just throw in to the game for release day but we are not going to' frame of mind far to many developers are getting these days. So due to the likes of Batman AC and Battlefield (the latest games I have noticed doing this), I decided I am going to sit here and rant about why I do not like the state of the gaming industry today.
While I agree DLC has the potential to do great things and extend the replay value of a game. DLC should be something worth while. This should be the new aged equivalent of expansion packs of yester year. Take a look at Yuri's Revenge for Red Alert 2, to this day I would have to say that is one of the greatest expansion packs of all time, then you have Blue Shift and Opposing Force as expansions for Half-Life, which I still think they should of done the same with Half-Life 2 would of loved to play as Barney through that game but I digress. That is what DLC should be, not this whole 4 new maps for £15, or with the likes of Mortal Kombat where you pay them for new characters, that should be unlockable stuff in game, and the worst of all of this is Homefront when they released a shotgun, that's right a single shotgun as DLC for their game.
With the map packs while it is a good thing and it proves the developers still support the game and get new content out. The fact is that you get 3 or 4 new over priced levels I truley believe that every game should have the option of using mod tools provided by the developers so people can create their own maps, thus prolonging the games life span due to constant new features and levels. Many companies have done this and still have people playing them to this day, a prime example of this is Valve. People are still playing Counter Strike and that game is getting quite old now, it's 12? if we go back to the pre Valve version of the game. Anyway my point is they got the gaming community to do half there work for them and when something caught their eye, they snapped it up and continued to support it along side the community.
At the end of the day video games are a long term investment, you shouldn't be sat there making them to try and get a quick buck. There are loads of games I buy from years ago purely because they are good games and I never got round to it first time round. Which is why I laugh at the likes of THQ and the latest Red Faction game; Armageddon, when they wiped their hands clean of the franchise when it didn't turn instant profit. They are a big company and have a number of other games on the go such at Saints Row, Metro and yearly renditions of WWE games to help subsidise. I am still going to get Red Faction: Armageddon, but due to me being skint and me getting another couple of games, it's still on the list. But now it's nearer the top of the list and will probably be bought at christmas. They have to remember we are in a global recession and not everyone can afford to go out and buy every single game as a day one purchase.
Talking of day one purchases as of late it doesn't seem like you can really trust them. With the likes of Rage, Dead Island, Homefront and numerous other titles being buggy as sin upon release. The bugs in the fore mentioned games were quite substantial though, if they were small glitches which could of easily been missed that is fair enough. The reasoning behind this, I don't know. The fact of the matter is this should not be happening. I would rather see a game delayed than developers throwing out half finished buggy products. This is another reason I wait before buying games normally a couple months or so after release, just in case if it is released buggy, it would more than likely be sorted by then. Games like Dead Island and Homefront (can't say for Rage as I haven't play it yet) are good games, but the majority of people are put off by the initial problems, and word of mouth spreads and you end up not getting the sales you wanted because you didn't push back the game a couple weeks to finalise the game and rid it of problem that shouldn't be there.
While I agree DLC has the potential to do great things and extend the replay value of a game. DLC should be something worth while. This should be the new aged equivalent of expansion packs of yester year. Take a look at Yuri's Revenge for Red Alert 2, to this day I would have to say that is one of the greatest expansion packs of all time, then you have Blue Shift and Opposing Force as expansions for Half-Life, which I still think they should of done the same with Half-Life 2 would of loved to play as Barney through that game but I digress. That is what DLC should be, not this whole 4 new maps for £15, or with the likes of Mortal Kombat where you pay them for new characters, that should be unlockable stuff in game, and the worst of all of this is Homefront when they released a shotgun, that's right a single shotgun as DLC for their game.
With the map packs while it is a good thing and it proves the developers still support the game and get new content out. The fact is that you get 3 or 4 new over priced levels I truley believe that every game should have the option of using mod tools provided by the developers so people can create their own maps, thus prolonging the games life span due to constant new features and levels. Many companies have done this and still have people playing them to this day, a prime example of this is Valve. People are still playing Counter Strike and that game is getting quite old now, it's 12? if we go back to the pre Valve version of the game. Anyway my point is they got the gaming community to do half there work for them and when something caught their eye, they snapped it up and continued to support it along side the community.
At the end of the day video games are a long term investment, you shouldn't be sat there making them to try and get a quick buck. There are loads of games I buy from years ago purely because they are good games and I never got round to it first time round. Which is why I laugh at the likes of THQ and the latest Red Faction game; Armageddon, when they wiped their hands clean of the franchise when it didn't turn instant profit. They are a big company and have a number of other games on the go such at Saints Row, Metro and yearly renditions of WWE games to help subsidise. I am still going to get Red Faction: Armageddon, but due to me being skint and me getting another couple of games, it's still on the list. But now it's nearer the top of the list and will probably be bought at christmas. They have to remember we are in a global recession and not everyone can afford to go out and buy every single game as a day one purchase.
Talking of day one purchases as of late it doesn't seem like you can really trust them. With the likes of Rage, Dead Island, Homefront and numerous other titles being buggy as sin upon release. The bugs in the fore mentioned games were quite substantial though, if they were small glitches which could of easily been missed that is fair enough. The reasoning behind this, I don't know. The fact of the matter is this should not be happening. I would rather see a game delayed than developers throwing out half finished buggy products. This is another reason I wait before buying games normally a couple months or so after release, just in case if it is released buggy, it would more than likely be sorted by then. Games like Dead Island and Homefront (can't say for Rage as I haven't play it yet) are good games, but the majority of people are put off by the initial problems, and word of mouth spreads and you end up not getting the sales you wanted because you didn't push back the game a couple weeks to finalise the game and rid it of problem that shouldn't be there.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Gaming Etiquette: Playing your part
I have noticed a few things that have been annoying me recently mainly in Team Fortress but I'll talk about Left 4 Dead first. Basically it is just the amount of times I have been teamed with people that do not help you when you get incapacitated or in trouble with hordes when you are near a safe house. Instead of coming out to give you a hand they just let you fight your way out of it or die. I'm sorry but it's a co-op game, therefore aren't you meant to help out your team mates when they get in trouble. Yes, this will guarantee that you make it to the next part of the campaign, but it annoys the crap out of me. You are supposed to help out and get the entire team to the end not just one person. Along with this I have had a number of games where team mates have just been pure ass holes and shooting you, by this I don't mean accidentally shooting you while you are surrounded by a horde and they shoot you while thinning out the zombies attacking you, that, while it is slightly annoying especially if you have low health, is acceptable as they were just trying to help out and I will be the first to admit I have done this on a number of occasions as some times you aim is having an off day or whatever. My point is recently I have had people coming in the safe room while preparing and just shooting you quite blatantly, I'm sorry but wtf. If you are going to play games where you need to rely on team mates don't be a dick and team kill.
Now we will get on to the matter of Team Fortress. There are 3 classes I am going to complain about and I shall start with the Engineer, the amount of people that walk idly by damaged and or sapped buildings and don't even think about repairing it, I play engineer quite often and at the start of maps if there is another engineer on my team I will always build up their buildings before even thinking of setting up mine, I think it is better to have one fully upgraded sentry rather than 2 or 3 level one sentries, along with teleporters as well. While I am not saying you have to do this and by all means get your stuff up first, but when you have give others a hand with theirs. Hell even if it is just upgrading a tele entrance which hasn't yet got exit so when it does go up it will be level 3 and much more helpful. If you do choose to play engineer don't be that guy who does nothing but sits hidden behind his sentry constantly hitting it, I have seen people sat constantly wrench a sentry even when there are absolutely no enemy in site. This isn't any help at all, if anything do some defensive scouting, and patrol your base and see where the enemies are coming possibly weaken them before they even get to your sentry making them easier to kill.
Next we have the medics. If played right they are the most useful of all the classes. If not like in damn near every game the healer will get blamed. My main beef with medics is pocket medics for heavies and while this is fine even when you are playing pocket medic, you should still heal people near by that need healing. There has been a couple incidents lately which is why I am bringing this up where a medic has been healing a heavy while in cover and I am retreating to get out of the line of fire and get some health and ammo back, I call for the medic as I am practically dead and does he heal me? No he doesn't, he sits there continuing to heal this heavy that hasn't even ventured out into the war zone yet. If you are going to play medic, heal the people that need healing most. Sure heavy medics are a great combination and can kick some serious ass but for the love of god they have 300 health they can hold their own for a few seconds while you heal other people that need it.
And last but not least we have the Pyro they have annoyed me for years. The main dig I am having a go them for is the severe lack of spy checks they do, this is especially annoying when I am engineering it up. All it takes is a little puff of fire on your way to doing what ever it is you are going to do. While of course it is every ones job to spy check, it is a hell of a lot easier for pyros as they just set them on fire for everyone to see. Another thing that bugs me about them is the fact that very few of them realise that with a lot of the flame throwers you have secondary fire that is a burst of air which allows you to put out fires. The amount of times I ran towards pyros on my team whilst on fire hoping to be extinguished and died because they didn't is ridiculous.
I think that will do for todays rant, and I will return with another when something else pisses me off while I'm playing something. Thank you and good night.
Now we will get on to the matter of Team Fortress. There are 3 classes I am going to complain about and I shall start with the Engineer, the amount of people that walk idly by damaged and or sapped buildings and don't even think about repairing it, I play engineer quite often and at the start of maps if there is another engineer on my team I will always build up their buildings before even thinking of setting up mine, I think it is better to have one fully upgraded sentry rather than 2 or 3 level one sentries, along with teleporters as well. While I am not saying you have to do this and by all means get your stuff up first, but when you have give others a hand with theirs. Hell even if it is just upgrading a tele entrance which hasn't yet got exit so when it does go up it will be level 3 and much more helpful. If you do choose to play engineer don't be that guy who does nothing but sits hidden behind his sentry constantly hitting it, I have seen people sat constantly wrench a sentry even when there are absolutely no enemy in site. This isn't any help at all, if anything do some defensive scouting, and patrol your base and see where the enemies are coming possibly weaken them before they even get to your sentry making them easier to kill.
Next we have the medics. If played right they are the most useful of all the classes. If not like in damn near every game the healer will get blamed. My main beef with medics is pocket medics for heavies and while this is fine even when you are playing pocket medic, you should still heal people near by that need healing. There has been a couple incidents lately which is why I am bringing this up where a medic has been healing a heavy while in cover and I am retreating to get out of the line of fire and get some health and ammo back, I call for the medic as I am practically dead and does he heal me? No he doesn't, he sits there continuing to heal this heavy that hasn't even ventured out into the war zone yet. If you are going to play medic, heal the people that need healing most. Sure heavy medics are a great combination and can kick some serious ass but for the love of god they have 300 health they can hold their own for a few seconds while you heal other people that need it.
And last but not least we have the Pyro they have annoyed me for years. The main dig I am having a go them for is the severe lack of spy checks they do, this is especially annoying when I am engineering it up. All it takes is a little puff of fire on your way to doing what ever it is you are going to do. While of course it is every ones job to spy check, it is a hell of a lot easier for pyros as they just set them on fire for everyone to see. Another thing that bugs me about them is the fact that very few of them realise that with a lot of the flame throwers you have secondary fire that is a burst of air which allows you to put out fires. The amount of times I ran towards pyros on my team whilst on fire hoping to be extinguished and died because they didn't is ridiculous.
I think that will do for todays rant, and I will return with another when something else pisses me off while I'm playing something. Thank you and good night.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
OnLive available in the UK
Onlive if you don't know is an upcoming cloud gaming service, which up until now has been based in America. Today it crosses the pond and makes its way to the UK. You can now sign up for free, which I did shortly before writing this, purely to see what it's like. So I downloaded and install the OnLive program, first thing I noticed was it is in fact a full screen application, I just assumed it would come in the format of a desktop client like Steam or Origin.
The layout of the program is seemingly simple and very easy to navigate. Once you get the program up and running you have a simple menu with 9 options which are: Arena, Profile, Marketplace, Showcase, the OnLive logo, My Games, Last Played, Brag Clips and Friends. Most of these menus are self explanatory.
'Arena' brings you to a menu where you can actually watch people who are currently playing games through this service letting you either watch and listen, or start a voice chat with them while they play which is a pretty cool feature. We then have the showcase menu which is pretty much their advertising page, letting you see what deals and offers they have on the go. The 'Onlive logo' brings you to the settings menu, which you can also get to by pressing escape. Last we have the 'Brag Clips' menu and according the email I received from them which says 'Create Brag Clip Videos of your finest moves or most hilarious fails and share them friends of Facebook or the whole OnLive community'. So it would seem like they have a built in game play recorder which is a nice touch.
I had a look in the marketplace and they do seem to have a fairly decent selection of games which you can either buy out right to play whenever you choose or you can rent them. Which I can see being quite popular as there isn't really a market for renting PC games these days due to the amount of drm and digital downloads about leading to the demise of the PC rental market being none existent. They do have quite a good deal on at the moment with their 'Playpack Bundle' which gives you access to 100+ games to play whenever you choose for £6.99 a month which is more than a decent offer. This bundle includes games such as Bioshock, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament 3 and Just Cause 2 to name a few, full list of games in this bundle can be found on their website. Along with all these games you will also receive a 30% discount off all other purchases. You also have the chance to test out games before you buy and or rent them with their game demos. I believe this is every game on their system, but don't quote me on that.
I think this is a frankly great idea and do wish the OnLive guys luck with it, with internet connections these days constantly getting upgraded and faster this is a good way to go on the gaming front. My connection at the minute isn't the greatest, it should be alright for this though. Once I get some disposable income available I am going to try this out as recently my graphics card crapped out on me leading to me having to downgrade to my brothers old ATI 3850, so until I get a new graphics card funded I'm sat on lowest settings on any relatively new game. I'll see how OnLive compares.
Last thing before I finish this post. If you register before the 9th October, OnLive has an offer letting you get your first game from them for a mere one pound, this offer is valid on any game which isn't a pre-order game. Also if you happen to have your internet though BT, you will have access to the 'PlayPack' bundle for 3 months for free and OnLive data will not count towards your usage limits on BT until at least the 2nd of January.
The layout of the program is seemingly simple and very easy to navigate. Once you get the program up and running you have a simple menu with 9 options which are: Arena, Profile, Marketplace, Showcase, the OnLive logo, My Games, Last Played, Brag Clips and Friends. Most of these menus are self explanatory.
'Arena' brings you to a menu where you can actually watch people who are currently playing games through this service letting you either watch and listen, or start a voice chat with them while they play which is a pretty cool feature. We then have the showcase menu which is pretty much their advertising page, letting you see what deals and offers they have on the go. The 'Onlive logo' brings you to the settings menu, which you can also get to by pressing escape. Last we have the 'Brag Clips' menu and according the email I received from them which says 'Create Brag Clip Videos of your finest moves or most hilarious fails and share them friends of Facebook or the whole OnLive community'. So it would seem like they have a built in game play recorder which is a nice touch.
I had a look in the marketplace and they do seem to have a fairly decent selection of games which you can either buy out right to play whenever you choose or you can rent them. Which I can see being quite popular as there isn't really a market for renting PC games these days due to the amount of drm and digital downloads about leading to the demise of the PC rental market being none existent. They do have quite a good deal on at the moment with their 'Playpack Bundle' which gives you access to 100+ games to play whenever you choose for £6.99 a month which is more than a decent offer. This bundle includes games such as Bioshock, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament 3 and Just Cause 2 to name a few, full list of games in this bundle can be found on their website. Along with all these games you will also receive a 30% discount off all other purchases. You also have the chance to test out games before you buy and or rent them with their game demos. I believe this is every game on their system, but don't quote me on that.
I think this is a frankly great idea and do wish the OnLive guys luck with it, with internet connections these days constantly getting upgraded and faster this is a good way to go on the gaming front. My connection at the minute isn't the greatest, it should be alright for this though. Once I get some disposable income available I am going to try this out as recently my graphics card crapped out on me leading to me having to downgrade to my brothers old ATI 3850, so until I get a new graphics card funded I'm sat on lowest settings on any relatively new game. I'll see how OnLive compares.
Last thing before I finish this post. If you register before the 9th October, OnLive has an offer letting you get your first game from them for a mere one pound, this offer is valid on any game which isn't a pre-order game. Also if you happen to have your internet though BT, you will have access to the 'PlayPack' bundle for 3 months for free and OnLive data will not count towards your usage limits on BT until at least the 2nd of January.
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Razers Big Announcement
I know I'm a bit late writing about this as it was announced 2 days ago but I've just got back from 3 days away from home. So I haven't had the time or the internet to do so. Anyway Razer put up a interesting website under the name of PC Gaming Is Not Dead this was quite intriguing and it seems they have released a high end gaming laptop called the Blade. It does really look pretty good spec wise which can be found here. What is pretty cool is the interactive touchpad to the right of the keyboard. The buttons and display on it change depending on which game you have running, which is a nice touch. Hopefully there will be a decent amount of games compatible with it on release. With games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft I can see it being quite handy, maybe with games like Counter Strike for buying things at the start of rounds aswell, I'm not really sure what else in game it could be used for. Again it is a pretty awesome looking gaming laptop, the price on release later this year is said to be $2,799. For that kind of money you could build a much better desktop and still have some cash left over. Is it worth nearly 3 grand... I dunno I wouldn't buy it, but I am happy enough to sit in the house and game, I don't have a need for portable gaming. Unless you do to would you really want to throw away 3 grand. Don't get me wrong this isn't a dig at Razer and this product, it is looking like a fantastic piece of tech and they obviously have enough of a market for it otherwise they wouldn't invest in making it. But it's gaming laptops (be it from Razer, Alienware or wherever), they really aren't my thing. If I had plenty of disposable income I probably would think about buying one, but until the price goes down there is no chance in hell i will even consider one tbh.
Monday, 22 August 2011
PC Gaming Is Not Dead
PC Gaming is not dead and to prove it Razer have something something up there sleeve, what it is I don't know but keep the 26th of August in your date book. The website they put up is just a loop of a computerised voice with very vague details on what this is about. Maximum PC think it may be related to the Razer Switchblade. Kbmod has a couple of theories aswell. I also noticed it is the same date as a PC release of the new 'Deus Ex' game on Steam so may have something to do with that (although that is the Euro release date, so I dunno). This has got me intrigued and I will be keeping an eye to see what the hell this is about. It's good to see more people defending the PC side of gaming rather than shunning it because consoles will make them more money *cough* Epic *cough*
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
My mascot
Well I've been throwing ideas around for what my banner/logo for this site should be. I ended up with an idea about a Mascot which happens to be a pig. A pig? Yes. A pig. Why a pig you ask? Basically the intials of the site is p.o.g but I couldn't think of anything that would relate to that. Then I thought p1g, P1G looks like pig and the idea was born. This pig has now be named and will forever be known as Paul. He was named by my friend Nathan (who owns www.portalcasino.co.uk I know a shameless plug but nevermind). I said he could name him if he helps me design him and the banner. So he gets photoshop and to name my pig, I get a pig and a pretty picture to go up top there. So far what he is going to look like is still in the works, Nathan suggested making him out of the letters P1G (yes I know 1 isn't a letter, not my point). It sounds like a good idea, I'm not sure how it's going to work I can't picture it, I'm interested to see how it would work actually it sounds pretty cool. I'm kind of thinking a cartoonish pig, sunglasses, quite bright coloured t shirt im thinking yellow all within a circle of some sort. I'm going to start doodling and see what I come up with. Anyway I'm going to bed now.
Friday, 12 August 2011
A Proper Introduction.
And i'm back, with a proper introduction instead of me rambling endlessly looking for a point to talk about. It will happen again though, I know exactly what I'm like. I am Craig, I use Player One as my online name for pretty much every game. I did start off with whatever default name games used to give me, ie Player, Default Player etc... which evolved at some point to Player One. Yup I've quite the creative one I know.
Most of the games I do play are mainly single player, at the moment I have a few games on the go as I'm trying polish off my frankly quite large backlog of games. I blame steam and there constant deals and cheapness. At the moment I'm playing GTA4 many doing that to build up a little gamer score as I don't have an xbox. I will get some more Windows Live games some point down the line, I reckon batman AA and Gears are probably next no the list to get. I started play Metro aswell, I did start playing it awhile back but got stuck at some point quite nearish the start and never ended up playing it for awhile, so it's yet another game I have on the list.
What little multiplayer I do play is generally anything Valve and old halflife mods.
At the minute one mod I'm getting proper into again is Science and Industry, It's an under rated halflife 1 mod. Basically you play a a security guy of a science company and your main objective is to research better weapons, armour, and other upgrades and devices. You can do this quicker by stealing the other teams scientists, along with secondary objectives like sabotage and stealing the other teams weapons which you don't have yet. Even after all these years the SI guys still have there weekly gathering on sunday nights (9 gmt).
Most of the games I do play are mainly single player, at the moment I have a few games on the go as I'm trying polish off my frankly quite large backlog of games. I blame steam and there constant deals and cheapness. At the moment I'm playing GTA4 many doing that to build up a little gamer score as I don't have an xbox. I will get some more Windows Live games some point down the line, I reckon batman AA and Gears are probably next no the list to get. I started play Metro aswell, I did start playing it awhile back but got stuck at some point quite nearish the start and never ended up playing it for awhile, so it's yet another game I have on the list.
What little multiplayer I do play is generally anything Valve and old halflife mods.
At the minute one mod I'm getting proper into again is Science and Industry, It's an under rated halflife 1 mod. Basically you play a a security guy of a science company and your main objective is to research better weapons, armour, and other upgrades and devices. You can do this quicker by stealing the other teams scientists, along with secondary objectives like sabotage and stealing the other teams weapons which you don't have yet. Even after all these years the SI guys still have there weekly gathering on sunday nights (9 gmt).
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Rambling just to get me started.
So basically I've been thinking about starting a gaming blog for god knows how long to ramble on about games I've been playing or one that are coming out and anything else I care to rant about at the time.. I may move on to youtubing some point down the line but anyway I digress. I don't really know what I'm going to talk about in this one tbh, I'll end up typing until some sort of topic comes out. Future posts will most likely be a bit more thought though.
One thing that has been annoyed as of late is the fact that trying to use a playstation controller on PC is such a fucking faff to get working due to first off that there doesn't seem to be any official Sony drivers for them. When I did get the controller working in the windows settings would it work in games? Hell it wouldn't. Lucky I had some spare moolah about so instead of getting pissed off with sony I just went and bought a xbox controller, which works without a problem. At the end of the day I just did that mainly as I'm quite lazy and prefer going with the easy option. Anyway my point being I should be able to use whatever controller I like on my computer. I mostly blame sony for not having drivers but it makes sense for MS to not give a crap about any controller that isn't by them. But it should be about the customer and making things easier for them.
All this to play some GTA4, have had the game for ages but haven't actually played it yet. It's steams fault I constantly buy games on special and end up having a massive backlog of games. Anyway as we're on about GTA4 that's going to lead me on the GFWL. While everyone seems to complain about it and how it's not as good as steam and it's crap and all that shibbang, its frankly not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Granted the desktop client is frankly pretty poor but the ingame aspect is really quite decent or at least in my experience of it anyway. They still need to work on it and release more games for it, eg halo gow and other xbox exclusives. That would be a start of getting back at least some of the pc community. Anyway I'm tired and kinda losing concentration on what im rambling on about so I'm going to finish it now. Next time I'll have some better prepared stuff to talk about but if I hadn't started this now I wouldn't of done this for even longer.
One thing that has been annoyed as of late is the fact that trying to use a playstation controller on PC is such a fucking faff to get working due to first off that there doesn't seem to be any official Sony drivers for them. When I did get the controller working in the windows settings would it work in games? Hell it wouldn't. Lucky I had some spare moolah about so instead of getting pissed off with sony I just went and bought a xbox controller, which works without a problem. At the end of the day I just did that mainly as I'm quite lazy and prefer going with the easy option. Anyway my point being I should be able to use whatever controller I like on my computer. I mostly blame sony for not having drivers but it makes sense for MS to not give a crap about any controller that isn't by them. But it should be about the customer and making things easier for them.
All this to play some GTA4, have had the game for ages but haven't actually played it yet. It's steams fault I constantly buy games on special and end up having a massive backlog of games. Anyway as we're on about GTA4 that's going to lead me on the GFWL. While everyone seems to complain about it and how it's not as good as steam and it's crap and all that shibbang, its frankly not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Granted the desktop client is frankly pretty poor but the ingame aspect is really quite decent or at least in my experience of it anyway. They still need to work on it and release more games for it, eg halo gow and other xbox exclusives. That would be a start of getting back at least some of the pc community. Anyway I'm tired and kinda losing concentration on what im rambling on about so I'm going to finish it now. Next time I'll have some better prepared stuff to talk about but if I hadn't started this now I wouldn't of done this for even longer.
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