jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2757 Posts

E3 2018 Metal Jesus Edition
We covered quite a lot of E3 2018 discussion this year and with all of it I wasn't sure there was much more to learn. Metal Jesus was at this years E3 and he recorded a lot of it showcasing another side of E3 we didn't hear much about. Jesus and Kinsey first hit up a retro Japanese import store then head over to E3 to spend time with vendors selling retro gear such as RetreoN. I didn't know RetreoN was selling a new Atari remake and Jesus got a review unit so when he posts his review i'll share it. Jesus also hits up the Sony booth and it seems like he really likes the new Spider-Man game(not too surprising).

If you are finding more wrap up E3 videos or posts that you think are worth sharing, drop them in the comments.

Skyward Sword Came Out 7 Years Ago? Check Out This New Retrospective.
The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is an artistically beautiful Wii game with an interesting history. Wii owners were lucky enough to get two Zelda titles on the system with Twilight Princess and the follow up, Skyward Sword. One could argue that there wouldn't have been a Breath of the Wild if Skyward Sword hadn't received certain negative attention but sometimes you need to experience a low before you can get to better place. Or at least, the perception of it not being a great game exists in gaming paradoxically along side the Metacritic scores for Skyward Sword being really high. Still it's not a Zelda game i've played before and I do plan on picking it up to play at some point and found this recent AwesomeFaceProd YouTube retrospective on Skyward Sword to be really interesting.

If you've played Skyward Sword i'd love for your opinion of it.

Quake Champions Second Look Review + Last Day To Pick It Up For Free!
Firstly I wanted to send a special HAPPY FATHER DAY to all the Dads out there. #dadsolidarity.

I wanted to get my Quake Champs second look review out a couple days ago but you know how things go sometimes. That said, i'll drop the TLDR up at the top.

Quake Champions is a solid and fresh arena shooter that strips back much of the fluff to present a very old school deathmatch shooter that does ample justice to the Quake legacy.

And this is the last day to get Quake Champions on Steam for free until it launches for real sometime this year. You can claim it on Steam right now for free by hitting the link below.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/611500/Quake_Champions/

Since people seem hip to note when a PC game contains loot boxes or is free to play I'll do so right away in my review. *Ahem* Quake Champions contains loot boxes and is free to play. That said, if you have the ability to not wildly spend money on stuff you don't need, you can avoid the cosmetics loot box fiesta and just focus on the core gameplay which is a treat. Not to say you can experience every aspect of this game with paying or grinding way more than you'd like, you can't. But one nice thing about Quake Champions is that you can straight up buy all the Champs and be on the same level as everyone else that bought them. Or you can play for free and have access to Ranger, and one other Champ that unlocks after you complete the training mission. There is one rotating Champ that you can play that changes about every week or so and right now it's The Doom Slayer. That said, I only played as Ranger, which everyone gets for free. Oh and one other thing, each Champ has a special ability and that ability changes up how they play. I experienced other non Ranger Champs and no one seem crazy overpowered by the difference in core ability but lots of people are way better at arena shooters than I am.

As I said at the top of my review Quake Champions feels like old school Quake. I think this is a pretty fresh approach because the hottest online shooters right now getting the most attention are team shooters like Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch or the mega huge battle royale games like Fortnite and everything else that wants to be as big as Fortnite. For quite sometime I've wanted an accessible arena shooter that's simple enough to play with friends that is free so it's easy for everyone to play and Quake Champions is it. That said, I have a few irrational fears. Firstly i'm not sure there is a huge demand for Quake Champions. Will the audience for Quake Champions show up to make this game a financial success so it can live on? I'm a bit nervous that if I buy into this it might go the way of many other online only shooters that shutdown after they financially couldn't make it work. Still I worry because I love and I hope my love for Quake Champions can last a long time.

If you dig old school deathmatch shooters and want to come back and try your hand at one of the best around, Quake Champions is free right now on Steam.

Valve Will Drop Windows XP & Vista Support in 2019
https://i.imgur.com/j0lEeyc.jpg
Valve has supported Windows XP and Vista for way longer than I thought they would so it makes sense that they are finally going to stop. I could see some gamers running older games that work great on XP get bitten a bit here but Windows XP is now 17 years old and most PC gamers have moved on and it seems Valve is too.

"Starting on January 1 2019, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. This means that after that date the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows.

The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 7 and above.

For the remainder of 2018 Steam will continue to run and to launch games on Windows XP and Windows Vista, but other functionality in Steam will be somewhat limited. For example, new features such as the new Steam Chat will not be available. We encourage all users on these operating systems to upgrade to newer versions of Windows in order to have ongoing access to the latest features of Steam, and to ensure future access to all games and other Steam content."

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1558-AFCM-4577

Watch This Grim Fandango Table Read!
At this years E3 Coliseum Double Fine presented a really special script table read of Grim Fandango featuring the original voice actors and Jack Black! The original game music composer Peter McConnell was there providing the music creating the backdrop for a very special event. The whole thing was to pitch that Grim Fandango and Broken Age are coming to the Switch and if you haven't played these games and own a Switch you might be interested.

For All The Grub Eaters: Sony @ E3 2018
I don't own a PS4 and don't plan to buy one but I hold a special place in my heart for Sony as I was a happy PS3 owner until mine died a couple years ago. They seem to be doing a great job of collecting the hardcore console audience and the console exclusives seem interesting to fans. I watched the conference tonight and if you are interested in seeing what Sony is up to you should too. I'll drop some interesting bits of that conference below and if you have something I didn't note let me know in the comments.

In the beginning there was Banjo: The whole stream started off with an old dude playing a banjo and it sounded awesome. I also liked how the Sony conference featured a few musical interludes. Not sure how many other gamers liked that part but I did.

Last of Us Part II: Holy shit Part II looks crazy insane violent. I didn't play the original but if I did this would be interesting. Honestly the game might be too violent for me, which is an odd thing to say but I am getting older and way less cool so there's that. I started watching the live stream while watching my son and I thought I would be able to watch all of it but when the video switches to Ellie stabbing a dude in the neck I had to finish it after he went to be.

Death Stranding: I have no idea what this is but it looks like a cool concept movie. The video featured a woman eating a grub which was neat but I prefer snacks like peanuts. Hideo Kojima fans are excited about this and I like the trailer I saw but the game doesn't look like something i'd play. Still, a woman ate a grub in the trailer so I bet that will push some units. Press X to eat grubs.

Spiderman: The game looks like a ton of fun. To say it looks like the most Spiderman version of Batman Arkham Knight possible isn't an insult because the game is doing it's own thing and seems to speed up gameplay quite a bit. I wonder how replay-ability is with a game that seems so corridor and story beat focused? It might just be the way the gameplay was cut, it might play out very differently in the end. Either way this game looks fun.

Steam As An Open Marketplace Is Creating Controversy
https://i.imgur.com/j0lEeyc.jpg
When you ask someone if they want some corporation deciding what movies, music, books or games they should consume they usually say they don't. One negative part of the Apple Ecosystem people cite is that the app store curation doesn't allow anyone the ability publish any app they want. Most apps get through but some don't and recently the Steam Link App was barred access for reasons that aren't entirely clear. One really amazing benefit of open systems such as the PC, Linux and the Mac is that you can install anything you want and I appreciate it when companies and communities build these open systems. So it wasn't a controversial topic, to me, when Valve recently decided that they were going to allow anything on Steam unless it was illegal or "straight up trolling."

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082

"So we ended up going back to one of the principles in the forefront of our minds when we started Steam, and more recently as we worked on Steam Direct to open up the Store to many more developers: Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this. If you're a player, we shouldn't be choosing for you what content you can or can't buy. If you're a developer, we shouldn't be choosing what content you're allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable."

It's a rather long blog post on why the decided to curate Steam in the way they do and you should read it. That said, I was a bit surprised that so many news outlets seemed to harshly pan Valve's choice.

"Valve’s abdication of responsibility over Steam is the worst possible solution"

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/06/07/valves-abdication-of-responsibility-over-steam-is-the-worst-possible-solution/

"Steam's Irresponsible Hands-Off Policy Is Proof That Valve Still Hasn't Learned Its Lesson"

https://steamed.kotaku.com/steams-irresponsible-hands-off-policy-is-proof-that-val-1826654709

I get the criticism and honestly if Cheerful Ghost was a marketplace for games i'd put more rules in place for games than Valve is. That said, Valve is taking a stance that they are essentially an open platform that allows anyone the ability to publish their games regardless of how others respond to it. I'm reminded of people in the 90's calling Doom a "murder simulator" and if those obnoxious people were able to stop BBS's from allowing shareware downloads and iD from selling the games by mail, Doom wouldn't exist.

Not everyone in gaming thinks Valve is doing the wrong thing. It was nice to see Benda Romero and John Carmack have a friendly exchange on Twitter.

Brenda Romero: "I am against any form of censorship, and support Valve in having an open platform."

https://mobile.twitter.com/br/status/1004635621481177088

John Carmack (in response): "Censorship is a loaded word that can be argued doesn't apply to commercial platforms, but I support Valve in having an uncurated platform. There are plenty of more-or-less carefully curated platforms to choose from; I think having one with explicitly near-zero curation is good."

https://mobile.twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1005113174327283712

Lots of early criticism asked what Valve considered games that were "straight up trolling" and seemed to directly say Valve wouldn't do anything to stop these games. That said, as more time has passed Valve has taken action and it seems to be in line with what they've said and to a positive end removing such "games" such as AIDS Simulator and Active Shooter.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-06-08-valve-removes-aids-simulator-other-controversial-games-from-steam-store

In the end I might build a game marketplace that has more rules in place but I respect Valve for creating an open marketplace even though it's not an ultra popular concept with everyone. I also think this is partly an issue because of how big Valve is in that if Active Shooter was just available on their website for download who would care? Games like Active Shooter get a ton of negative attention and i'd argue wouldn't otherwise because, generally, these kinds of shock games really suck. Few are as revolutionary as Doom but when the next Doom comes along it should exist because games and art like that change the world for the better.

E3 Day 1 - Electronics Arts Roundup
EA was the first big game entity to present at this years E3 and as such I have a few news bits I thought were interesting about it. If you have more you want to share that I didn't cover, please drop it in the comments.

BioWare's New Anthem

Anthem looks to be the big game EA is betting quite a bit on the success of and it launches next February. If you look at the gameplay you can see why as it looks like Halo/Destiny decided it needed more mech suits. The game also looks incredibly pretty yet I have an odd feeling like we've seen the same game play now for the last two years of E3. It keeps looking better, I just wonder how many more environments or scenarios the game has? Regardless the games looks incredible and BioWare does have a great track record for making incredible games and I hope everyone is singing along with Anthem when it launches. I haven't ever purchased a game on EA Origin before and Anthem may be the first one.

That Game Subscription

EA has been offering the $30 a year EA Origin Access game subscription for quite some time that allows you access to over 100+ EA games alongside other developer games. The subscription includes EA titles that are not quite new such as Titanfall 2, Mass Effect Andromeda, Sims 4, Star Wars Battlefront Ultimate Edition and a lot more. If you're a big EA fan and don't have these games $30 a year is a great way to play them all. That said EA is offering a Premier Origin Access subscription for $100 a year that allows you access to the latest and greatest EA games early. For EA super fans this seems like a pretty good deal because buying two ultimate editions of any given EA game is sometimes more than $100 a year. It's interesting to see more companies get in the game subscription business and with EA's vast library and the fact that they are signing on a ton of other game content makes this fairly compelling.

EA Releasing New Command & Conquer Game On Mobile
I'm not sure I wanted this but i'm cautiously optimistic about the new Command & Conquer game EA dropped the details of on the E3 stage today. It looks to be inspired by the mobile clash games but with a Command & Conquer spin. It feels like a mini version of Command & Conquer and i'm not sure how good that will feel to play? Since it's a mobile game it appears to be free to play although I don't remember EA mentioning the price model for it.

It's in early beta on Android now and should be coming out later this year but EA didn't specify when. When this drops on your device is Command & Conquer Rivals something you'll try?

What Sequels Are Better Than The Original?
Metal Jesus has a new video where he asks his friends what game sequels are better than the originals. They have a lot of great answers and it got me thinking a bit about what I would pick? I think a few games stand out to me but Mega Man 2 is one of the games that comes to mind as being better than the original. I also think WarCraft III was a better game than the first two WarCraft's even though WarCraft II was really good.

What games or movies do you think are better than the original?