Playing: The Baconing, how does it hold up?

     If you’ve played any of the Deathspank series, this edition to the series is no amazing surprise on control. Hothead kept their basic control scheme so if you got through the first two you’ll pick this one right up. The humor value is still there and as off kilter as usual. The weapons are just as insane such as the “Plasma Sword” you know the blood kind. The series in itself is off kilter humor with a superhero whom most reminds me of “The Tick”. Brave, Strong and not all that smart.

     Downsides: Well if you expect a completely different game (and I don’t just mean different story) this will disappoint you.  As well a lot of the Vendors tend to want to sell you something you got rid of be it no further use or leveled past it’s needs.

     Upsides: I’ll list them off it’s easier

• The same humor as the first games and the story still remains fresh
• Weapons of most bizarre attributes
• Villains that have kept up with the game
• Returning jokes especially the ethnicity of being an orphan
• That sure I’ll fight a giant 3 headed gnome with a box of twinkies just so I can say I can attitude of the Hero

     I personally had some fear since EA did not publish this chapter that the game would be extremely different but the folks at Hothead really stayed true to our hero of the downtrodden. At time of post I’ve only played so far in so I can’t say it’s stayed 100% true to the storyline thus far, but it’s Deathspank so you really can’t question things like that. Overall the Baconing thus far has not failed this player will my opinion change upon the ending we’ll see.

The Baconing has arrived!!!!

 

     So the epic Tale of Deathspank continues. I’m still waiting for it to finish downloading now off the playstation network. This is the first title in this series to not be under the same developer as the previous titles. Will it be as epic and funny as the previous games? I’ll be updating tomorrow as I’m not sure if I’ll get to it before I sleep for the night.

Acheivements and Trophies: addiction or humorous ways to keep the player gaming?

     The gaming industries have our number when it comes to trophies and acheivements. No one can deny that when you pull off some killer move in a game and hear a noise with a notification in our games that we did something worthy of noting we don't get a thrill. This has been one of my own personal amusements to games lately. I'll admit I've personally racked up over 2000 trophies (PS3 has trophies Xbox has Acheivements for those not in the know) Some were just because the challenge was there and I could do it. Others happened and I didn't even know why.  The best trophies I think are the ones that go off for the weirdest reasons..... for example:

• "Hey, Get back here" Eat Lead the Return of Matt Hazard - acheived by pressing the pause button

     I'll admit before I buy most games I look into the trophy list to see what may lay in wait for the player to either go for or what I should see if I can find possible in a game I've never played. The trophies that seem to ruin games for me are those that you get for beating the game and *bing* come up right before the game ending... Really the game is over already? What there's no point in watching the animations cause well I know I beat the game. The bonus here is with games that bored me it made the feeling I already beat it good. The part that gets me is the Epic games it totally ruins the ending.

     The mixture of good and bad is where alot of the issues lie. I'm all for you letting me know when I've collected all the weapons of the gods or pulled of a really challenging arena battle, but when I happen to die enough times that I'm about to throw my controller is not the time to patronize me. The innumerable kills ones as well get me. I've had enough trouble getting 50 kills in your game and I can't complete the trophy list till I get 5.9 billion kills..... WTF!!!

     So to the point are trophies and acheivements addicting.... Yes when done right you can never truly get enough, but when they are either impossible or just dumb..... I start to put down my controller to watch cartoons or look for something on TV.

The Villans: Misunderstood or Just Evil

     The game industry has had several great villans. What though is the story behind why some of these characters are the bad guy? Super Mario has been chasing down Bowser because he's kidnapped Princess Toadstool since the 80's but you're never told exactly why he did it. I get that you have to have a reason for defeating someonw and going through a quest, but what exactly lead to this event?

     Alot of todays games they give the villan a bit more of a backstory, but without giving us much in the way of motives. Although if they do it's almost simplistic and boring. Example: Hero A used to work with Ultra Villan until..... Yeah the desire for revenge is great but it's kinda odd and rare that the root of all evil is some guy you took a shit on years ago. Ideally it's a great plot device. Though back to my main point it doesn't necessarily make thema villan.

     There's alot of questions I've got about the games of old even into the games of today. So the following is my list of questions for the gaming industry.

1. What lead to the Mushroom kingdom being invaded by King Koopa?
2. Why exactly do we go from fighting soldiers to a gigantic alien heart in Contra?
3. In Castlevania they give a bit of backstory to the Belmont's vs Dracula and the forces of Darkness, but why have they not been able to truly kill Dracula?
4. Gannon is a Giant pig originally up until the ages of N64 what set the events in motion that lead to the capture of Zelda and why is she so dumb to keep getting kidnapped?
5. Is there a reason why fighting games seem to have almost mirror endings amongst certain characters as the years go by? ie eyedol and blanka

Yeah that's just the begining of what bothers me. Please feel free to add to this list message me at Dreimann1381@gmail.com so I can get this list moving so we can find answers.

The video game industry: a breif history

    Some of you kiddies are probably Xbox, PS3, Wii toting gamers that really don't have a true understanding of the roots of videogames. I'm even a bit young compared to where it began. The consoles of today like to reflect back so parents of now can enjoy gaming with kids but no one really explains what it used to look like or how far gaming has really come. I'll give you a listing here oldest to newest explaining just that:

• Vector based gaming - ever see Tron? the outfits are actually based on vector design play games used to look like sketches made of white or green lines on a black background.
• Arcade / Atari - some games simply started as blocks you were a block, the world around you a block and it grew a little here into pac man, asteroids and the such.
• NES or Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System - We grew to 8 bit sprites here the games had pictures that we thought were amazing and you kinda had to look at the booklet to get the idea of some of what you came across in the game.
• Super Nintendo / Sega Genesis - 16 bit graphics and alot of these are being redone to look better and be "Retro" on the newer consoles but just about anyone could make out the image on the screen.
• Sony Playstation/ Nintendo 64/ Sega Dreamcast -  Sega ruined their good name here by not announcing the dreamcast was being released to stores. Nintendo held back trying not to make the switch to disc games and stuck with the older style of cartridges like Gameboy in it's many incarnations still has. Sony took the limelight by storm by Releasing Playstation with somewhat 3 dimensions for their games and the art spoke for itself
• Playstation 2 / Xbox - Microsoft tried to gain some limelight here but was trying to keep up with Sony's Monsterous PS2 which just about anyone now will admit to having either both or their freind has PS2 so they bought an Xbox. Games made the move to DVD format and everyone was building to make the most either movie like game or have their game be so epic you'd buy a console just to play a game.
• Today - PS3/Xbox 360/Wii - Doesn't seem like it's been that far but it's now working it's way to almost 30 years since the arrival of Nintendo (and I am from the NES generation). Honestly now images are almost lifelike and you really can not tell with some games if the image is just cg or mo cap with touch ups.

Some of the older people now either feel really old or are going "oh yeah.... I remember that". Well if you want to look further into older gaming I personally suggest looking into emulation and Roms. Parents I suggest looking through Google and trust me you'll find some old memories here that you can play through your pc going all the way back and even slowly working into some of the games of today.

I personally Recommend the following emulators:

1. Nesticle, Gnes and Nestopia for classic Nintendo
2. Zsnes and Gens for SNES and Sega Genesis and Master System
3. Mame for Arcade
4. Kawacks and Neopa for Neo Geo games

You'll find others try em out and if they're anygood let me know.

Noob busting: The haunt of the online shooter Jerks and Jackasses.

      I was reading an article in I believe it was Cheatcodes Monthly where someone decided to purposely be an online jerk in Halo. The sad result is that people thought it was funny and some people decided to be bigger jerks and it just got scary.  The sad thing is that alot of players avoid first person shooters with an onlide mode for this very reason. If you're trying to learn a game or style of game you want people whom are beginners as well, but instead you get the lowlifes whom don't give a new player or "noob" a chance as this is their 100th profile and they know just about everyway to cheat the system and ruin a players experience. In playing online I've experienced this and honestly passed off my mic so I didn't chance banning myself as the Jerks seem to overrun the servers. The following is a list of the things that people found funny in one aspect, but if you look at it from an outside view it's irritating and just not fair when someone doesn't have a chance to learn at their pace.

1. Your Mom- The threats alone empty as they may have been to psych out another player seem at times to go too far. example... "come back here or I'll rape your mom in the ass" and the sad thing is that with some of the reporting systems these games have to stop things like this most people laugh instead of saying "Whoa too much dude".
2. Purposely Glitching the system -  Resistance Fall of Man had this problem and I've seen it in some other games, but not as bad as when this plague was ruining games of Resistance. What basically would happen is people would bog their incoming server so that they had the ability to run a thousand times faster and shoot faster than everyone else so within seconds of trying to help or accomplish a mission is was "Bang you're dead"
3. Spawn Killing Fucktards - Now alot of games give you a random spawn point now of days but it used to be if you knew where someone was going to spawn you killed them and trapped the area where they would respawn to get instant kill after kill.
4. YOUR MUSIC IN YOUR MIC - You may like Rap or that Beaber kid, but not everyone want's to listen to your taste in music. Spend the extra few bucks to get a mic that helps cancel out your background noise. This goes for people with kids and their neglected girlfriends as well. Cause yeah you may be able to frag 500 players but your girlfriend begging you to stop playing and fuck her isn't really something you should advertise unless you wanna give me her number, cause then I'll put down my controller and you can take my turn.

Now this is only a taste of what some players have dealt with over the years I am finding games to come across less of this, but it still exists. I'm not complaining about razzing someone or psyching out your opponent but I personally think you should allow fair play to true beginners. Especailly because you may be great at Halo but another game you might just end up the noob and I don't want to hear you bitch at how we are playing unfair.

     

Online Gaming: are the players there really hardcore gamers in the gaming community?

     This has been a debate for a while. I don't consider myself hardcore, but I do consider myself avid. So here is my take on this debate:

Internet gamers - Mostly Facebook players whom play alot of time managment games and like collecting odds and ends to show off what they've built up

PC Gamers - stick to "WASD" keys and a mouse or if they're oldschool a mouse and spacebar.

MMO'ers - This is a branch of PC gaming which is online but still in thier little click so I think it's fair to say they get a fair call

Console gamers - Stick to a console and play just about every game out there even if it sucks.

Portable gamers - similar to Console Gamers but like to have something they can play in public.

Cell phone gamers - play alot of tetris and puzzle games on their cell phone

Avid Fans - play a little bit here and there of all the previous categories, but don't try to specify thier likings to a simple platform

Truly Hardcore Gamers - Will play anything on any format at all times day or night can't live without gaming

I broke down the categories of gamers I encounter. Sad thing is most people that claim to be hardcore are usually PC or Console gamers that play games to the point where they play on super hard and like to badmouth anyone who calls them out on being just a multiplayer jackass. (I'll go a bit deeper on online gaming jackasses in a later post) So what if you're better at Call of Duty than me or that you got a scopeless kill and teabagged some poor noob. Yeah alot of the hate comes in on Shooters. See the Definition of Hardcore means there is no limit. The difference between Hardcore and sofcore porn is you see genetalia and penetration and soo much more in Hardcore. So why would someone that holds strong to a category not be hardcore in their category? Think before you speak folks.

Videogame staples: A sad realization that the new game you love is made up from older games.

      I sat down with a few freinds and had this discussion and I've realized no matter what form of game you play there is always a staple, be it a weapon or character design that refrences back to the older days of classic gaming.

1.) The Chosen One -
     This is kind of a sad staple and it really does play out well with some of the writing in videogames but it gets old. Some examples of this go back as far as the Legend of Zelda and even older if you're willing to look. If you're not familliar with this scenario, let me explain and sadly you'll see it everywhere.
- The world is somewhat in chaos. Monsters are appearing and even life in general is getting tough. Your character either awakens or is woken up somehow and goes out finds a magical weapon and by the end of the game saves the day.
Yeah trust me you've played that one.

2.) Weapons -
     Ok I'll admit weapons have gotten better but they do reflect back to an original design. Yeah there's quite a list to this so I'll sum it up to it's most basic forms
a.) grappling hook to pull something closer or pull you to it
b.) Gloves to either lift or break heavy stones
c.) A sword starts off really simple and then grows to either ungodly power or gains powers that don't always make sense
d.) Slightly newer is wings so you can glide to your objective
e.) An Axe to cut something down
That's a simple version of it I'll see if I can graph it out for a later post.

3.) Character Design -
Women - Either big breasted and thin or Kinda normal smart and they are a plot device
Men - yeah there's a sad design flaw here you can actually break it down to 3 stereotypes
Bulk, Twig, or medium but muscualar.

4.)Robotic humans-
   Ever play a game with a cyborg type with a gun for an arm. If they don't go the gun route it's a sword with either a basic energy type or supposedly unbreakable

Kinda disturbing isn't it yes it does break down further and in all honesty this is what makes gaming great. What I've covered here is mostly Rpgs and action/adventure games but this can also be said for platformers and even shooters. So remember yeah they can change it up but it does all basically break down to games you may have played way back when.

The Dreaded ESRB "A" Rating

     Anyone out there ever find a game in the US with this rating?  It's like the kiss of death to the gaming industry. So why is this such a fear. I've gotten carded at walrmart and I'm about to be thirty trying to buy a Mature or Teen rating. Is there a lack of coverage in the gaming industry or is the market slimming so like porno movies you'd have to hit a specialty shop for this game. I think as kids whom grew up from the Atari to the consoles of today we should be allowed to have an A rating game. Tell us we have to hit a porn shop for it as we all know the porn industry is booming and expanding into videogames may just provide a market and jobs.

"But what about this filth reaching our children?"

     This was the statement most people give me. This is where I say ESRB if you are going to rate why not make it a fair playing field. Kids get porn, bloods and guts and all the other things their parents rebel against from either a.) That parent without realizing it or b.) a relative or older sibling.  I'm not saying I feel that games should be based on having sex and watching animated tits flash your screen. I just think if a game is out there enough for an Adult rating it should be made available to the people that want to check it out. Games are held back and retooled just to avoid an A rating. Thus this leads to kids and adults holding their money back. Why not keep the economical system of gaming flowing free. Granted kids will not be able to get a game because of the content but isn't that the entire idea of the ESRB?

Introduction

     I am a gamer like many out there. I don't participate in system hate so please don't drag it to my door. I'm looking to express opinion and a somewhat outlandish view on a hobby/form of entertainment that we all enjoy. I'd like to express as well here my views on topics that seem to bounce around the industry like the "Adult" rating and why some games just feel lacking and others seem to crammed. Honestly I'm a playstation fanboy if this bothers you keep moving if not please feel free to comment and express your thoughts, I don't hate towards criticism but I refuse to take abuse for the sake of abuse.  With that being said welcome.