o_JMan240_o Blog

My PC Gaming Experience Thus Far

2013-06-08T14:44:00Z

I wrote a blog not too long ago about my trip down the road to PC gaming. It was spurred by a general distrust in the quality I expect to see from next-gen consoles around launch and a desire to test my abilities. I finished that build roughly 3 weeks ago, and have been gaming steadily on my new PC since. That leaves only a follow up blog about my take on the PC gaming experience so far.

To start things off though, I'll lay out the specs of my new gaming PC. Not to brag, because I would need a much better system for that, but to lay the groundwork for some of what I'll have to say moving forward. Be warned, things are about to get tech heavy. I ultimately settled on an AMD 8350FX as my processor after weighing price, performance, and how much I felt I would be able to squeeze out of it performance wise towards the end of its life. My CPU is paired with a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 motherboard that is loaded with 8GBs of Crucial Balistix 1866 memory. Finally, a Seasonic 620W power supply sends juice to an EVGA 660Ti FTW Edition GPU, a Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB SSD, and a Cooler Master Hyper N520 CPU cooler. I also threw in a Logitech G700s wireless gaming mouse and have some more things to add in there later.

Now that we've established I have an upper-middle class PC, we'll get down to business. The biggest question is, was it worth it? At the moment, probably not. This build cost me roughly $1200 that I'm still paying back, and I haven't played many new games on it - although I loved the free copy of Metro: Last Light that I received. The question of whether the investment was worth it will likely not be answered for some time, though the Steam Summer Sale may have a drastic impact on my point of view. Ultimately I'm guessing that things will even out. Of course, it's highly likely that the investment won't be worth it if even one of the new consoles develops a marketplace as price and content diverse as Steam. Regardless, I enjoyed the experience and have had fun with a few older games.

My actual user experience has been a mixed bag. Metro: Last Light ran extremely well on all high settings, with the exception of one quirk. As has The Witcher, The Witcher 2, Borderlands, Bad Company 2, and XCOM. That's not to say everything is peachy though. My experience with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II was horrendous, to say the least, and every game has had at least one slightly annoying hitch, though I can hardly blame that on the platform. PlanetSide 2 all but refused to allow me to take part in large battles, leaving me to wonder what was required to play that game if my 30mbps internet connection was not enough. I expect that, in the long run, everything will level out. Cheaper games will offset the higher price. The ability to upgrade will outweigh the naturally less intuitive interfaces and fiddling that is required. So forth and so on.

Interacting with other people is really where things get interesting. I've come away from almost a month of PC gaming having never gamed with another person I know, not once. Even the people I know have been hard to get a hold of and my Steam friends list is still small. The experience has, admittedly, given me new respect for the simplicity of the console experience as even the PS3's system of communication is better than what I have dealt with on PC so far.

Anyone who spends enough time on the internet in gaming communities or gaming discussions knows how much PC gamers like to talk about how generally superior the space is. Many claims of superiority center around the claim of a more mature audience. Many PC players claim that consoles are only occupied by children and because many people build their gaming PCs many are older, and therefore more mature. Unfortunately, if it is more mature, it's only in the sense that it includes more mature content, not more maturity. If anything, the PC gaming space is comprised of the least mature people I have ever gamed with. By nature this is a generalized statement, so do not feel I'm directing this at you if you also game on PC, unless of course you do these things in which case this is definitely directed at you.

Unlike the console space, communication for many PC games is text only. While that might seem more pleasant in theory, in practice it only brings about even more vulgarity. With no need to speak things aloud, many gamers feel free to cross boarders that many people wouldn't when saying things aloud while potentially in earshot of their family or friends. Compounding that is the fact that servers are managed by a small number of real people, who by their very nature cannot be online at all times. With no native system in the background to report unpleasant people, it means that hackers, racists, and bigots often have absolutely no one to answer to.

Cheating is much easier on PC as well, making many more legitimate appearances in the space. Avoiding them means going out of your way in many cases, nothing as simple as blocking them on Xbox Live and having the system do it for you. Without the ability to block someone from your chat box in many games, most cases force you to simply try to ignore the heinous things that are regularly displayed on your screen. What's worse, in a fair number of cases server moderators are the ones spreading that unpleasantness and ignoring the cheaters that are helping them win, while also ironically punishing people who aren't cheating and simply happen to be better at the game than they are.

When trying to find help for problems encountered in games, I've encountered just as many people who simply call me a console noob and tell me to go back to playing Call of Duty as were actually willing to help me work out my problems. What's worse though, is that many of these people still insist that they are more mature. Despite their antagonistic nature in conversations about games, despite their claim that their system is superior in performance and user base, I have found quite the opposite to be true. Their platform may be more powerful, but they are, at the very least, just as wholly unpleasant and ill mannered as the people they love to talk down upon at every given opportunity.

This isn't to say that my experience has been bad though. I've fell quite nicely into the groove of playing with a mouse and keyboard, thanks to some prior experience, and have found some people who were genuinely nice and genuinely fun to play with. I know that with time and a little bit of effort I can find a place that is more pleasant, as a whole though I can't sit here and say that the PC offers truly a better experience.

Though the games look nicer, they come with an inherent need to be fiddled with in order to perform optimally. Though it's nice not having kids screaming in my ear, the chats do get out of hand regularly. I'm sure the cheaper games from Steam will be great once the Summer Sale roles around, but that's outweighed by the price I paid to pay those prices. When all is said and done, neither the console nor PC experience appears to reign supreme. They're just different.

With that said I'd love to game with you on any system that I have a game for. My Xbox Live and PSN user names are linked on my GI profile page and you can find me easily on Steam by heading to the GIO Fragfest group and looking for JMan240 or looking up JMan240 and finding the profile with the grim reaper icon.

Metro: Last Light Review(PC)

2013-05-16T21:25:00Z

If there's one word to describe Metro: Last Light, that word is "better". It is a better game than its predecessor and a better shooter than its competition. Equal parts Crysis, Call of Duty, BioShock and Fallout, Metro: Last Light overcomes the problems that plagued its predecessor and straps on a gas mask to climb up, out of its niche. The result is easily one of my top games of the year.

Last Light, picks up where Metro 2033 ended and drops players right into the thick of a journey that they don't even know has already begun. Many story driven shooters suffer from fatigue, presenting the stakes up front and sending gamers on a flame-licked log-ride to one giant splash at the end. Based on the audience they attempt to appeal to, many also trap themselves. They either sprinkle unsatisfying story over the top of great mechanics or present so much exposition that they hope the player won't notice gameplay hitches. Last Light, however, strikes a much needed balance between the two.

A very good, but not quite great, story guides players through one of the most interesting worlds that video games have to offer. At its best the story jams together elements of survival horror, post-apocalyptic thrillers, and military drama. At its worst the plot stumbles slightly over ambiguity. Although it buries some story elements in its codex-like Diary, the story is still understandable and enjoyable without that extra information - even if it does tuck away some excessively interesting tidbits. I never felt lost, or as if I needed to read the Diary notes to grasp what was happening.

The story never needed to be as strong as it was though, thanks to its pairing with an absolutely pitch perfect environment. There are good looking apocalyptic environments, and then there's Metro: Last Light. The darkness of the metro is suffocating, and your flashlight does little to combat it. Tight corners branch into large areas before shoving you into a duct and doubling down and claustrophobia. The constant change adds an air of believability to the idea that the metros are a rough, dangerous place. Just getting to the next room can be difficult, requiring searches, makeshift solutions, and a handful of desperate encounters that mesh perfectly with the atmosphere.

Metros are also, thankfully, much more varied this time around. I was thoroughly surprised when a half hour of tunnels opened into a large, flooded metro and I was forced hold my ground against a pack of beasts as a fisherman brought his boat over to rescue me. The fleshing out of the world beneath the surface also presents opportunities for environmental storytelling. Settlements now feel lived in, though I was disappointed to only have the chance to thoroughly explore one. The setting now feels like a world instead of an excuse to make small levels, with little events happening perpendicular to your adventure.

In one instance, I found myself sneaking through a train car to save a woman from two armed men. Successfully accomplishing that, I shut off the lights as I worked my way out, and took down their friend who had come to investigate the silence. Further down the tracks, I found where those three men came from and cleared out the base as a woman screamed for help and the bandit leaders berated her. Upon confronting them though, I did not experience the same success as with the last encounter and the bandit leader, along with the captive woman, disappeared into the tunnels never to be seen again. It's these momentary choices, to stop and listen to someone's cry for help, to clear out an ambush or speed on through to the other side, that make the metros special in Last Light. They are where the last of humanity tells the last of its stories.

The surface is just as beautiful and players spend more time up top in Last Light than in Metro 2033. Unlike the previous game, time spent on the surface is not a mad dash in the face of overwhelming enemy strength and dangerously low supplies. Instead its often a slow and methodical trek through naturally hostile territory. The same new variety also makes its way to the razed remnants of Russia.

Swamps and ice fields, storms and sunlight, night and day. All in service of a world that actually feels like it has seen the scourge of nuclear war. The surface of Last Light's world is the first environment that I felt that way about, even the massive world of Fallout felt a little too orderly. In contrast, Metro is chaos, the best kind of chaos. The proper path is almost never the first you see and getting to it usually requires ducking in and out of the ravaged Russian streets. Enemies often scamper through the world as well, popping up here or there for a scripted sequence and even running in packs across the battlefield. Many of these packs can put up a hell of a fight, and Last Light makes it clear that a shoot on sight policy isn't always the best idea. It is truly impressive to see a game put so much effort into making its monsters a part of the world. When you are set upon by a pack of Watchers it doesn't feel like a wave of enemies is being thrown at you, because you've seen them scurrying about as you went.

Completing the trio of necessary elements, Last Light's gameplay also avoids slouching. Metro 2033's mechanics are probably most aptly described as obtuse. In a way that (almost) worked though. The visuals were rough around the edges, the world was rough around the edges, so why shouldn't it be a little rough around the edges in motion? Last Light takes a different approach though, cleaning up everything that was jagged and jarring about the previous title. Every movement and weapon swap is silky smooth, with the exception of the breach-loading shotgun which has a strange hitch in the reload animation.

Although the threat of running out of supplies may be all but gone on Normal, the men and beasts that have survived in the hostile environment still pack a punch. Unfortunately, most of these men and beast are also very predictable, advancing in the same patterns and with the same numbers in almost every instance. Surprisingly, the least predictable segments were the on rails ones - which were occasionally literally on train rails. The level of interactivity that some of these sections presented, was rather impressive. Similarly, while the same "defend yourself until the lift arrives" mechanic appeared several times, and was plagued by poor situation specific enemy AI, roughly half were punctuated by a satisfying twist.

This fault is largely overshadowed by the weapons, and shooting the occasionally brain-dead enemies is honestly the most fun I've had shooting anything in a video game for the last few years. The same cobbled together guns make a return appearance, along with the ammo as currency system, and they feel great. Shooting is much tighter, and variations in how different enemies must be approached, along with balancing of your loadout for the situation at hand, add an active touch to an otherwise passive system. A few new items are sprinkled in and an upgrade system is layered on top, although I was disappointed that I never came across the game's new night vision goggles.

Upgrades aren't extremely powerful, but they can affect how you approach certain situations. They also present an interesting system of give and take. Do you spring for a new gun or attachment knowing that down the line you may have to abandon your weapon in favor of one that you actually have ammo for? I found myself confronting that situation more than once; in the worst case spending almost 300 bullets tricking out a rifle, only to realize after struggling through a few areas that it just wasn't worth keeping a loud, slow gun around while sneaking through the metros.

However, some of the coolest weapons come in the last handful of levels, which, when grouped with a few other elements that crop up around the same time, makes it seem like the developers realized they would be wearing their audience thin with constant, repetitive combat. It's not that the encounters are bad, but rather that they feel samey. Late game tweaks change them slightly, but only really with the effect of making confrontations play out faster.

Earlier segments unfold much like Crysis or Farcry, with players given the choice to be stealthy or go in guns blazing. Like those games, the reality is often somewhere in between. There were a few sections where I found myself restarting checkpoints like I would in a stealth game, but at some point that level of detailed stealth stopped being fun for me and I started shooting. I like that it gave me the opportunity though, because I truly had fun working my way through the environments, and the tension created by those situations really helped get me into the game as the story was just pulling away from the platform.

This is the nuclear apocalypse though, and it's not without its troubles. The worst offender in the category of gameplay is the boss battles. They are something that, in practice, would have been better done without, regardless of how good they seemed on paper or how admittedly cool the boss designs are. All eventually turn into a game of cat and mouse involving running, then turning, then shooting, and finally more running. A process repeated until the oversized enemy finally hits the ground. Most show off enemy types new to the series as well, which means no epic showdown with the flying Demons that terrorized Artyom in Metro 2033. These fights feel out of place, and they aren't alone.

Much of Metro: Last Light feels odd. It's a game trapped between console and PC, between next-gen and current-gen, between old and new approaches to games. Carelessly designed, arena based boss fights punctuate carefully laid out and directed levels. The game is much better optimized, running at the highest settings - bells and whistles like PhysX turned off - without much trouble on my stock EVGA 660Ti graphics card in 1080p, a feat that would probably be difficult to match in the hefty Metro 2033.

However, when presented with that same card sporting a mild overclock, Last Light suddenly becomes unstable. Crashing while running at a consistent 50-60FPS on an overclocked card became an issue, especially in the rain soaked second trip to the surface, and I eventually had to unclock my card to proceed. For those not versed in PC tech, overclocking is like a tune up for a processor, and my card ran every other game I own, as well as EVGA's stress testing software and most of the game, without a hitch at those settings. I was surprised to have it running fine out of the box, and even more surprised to encounter this oddity.

More immediately noticeable are the game's visuals and interface. Last Light is a gorgeous game, but it's clear that it is still tied to current consoles. Characters are outstandingly detailed, but occasionally give the impression that they are computer generated puppets instead of people. Textures look great, but every now and again one pops up that clearly should have had something replacing it in the PC version. The interface that Game Informer's PC based review called "convoluted" is actually very simple, it's just one that is clearly meant for a gamepad and was clumsily mapped to a keyboard. At its core, the game is meant to be played with a controller, but it is, at the same time, meant to be played on a PC where mouse and keyboard controls reign supreme. A handful of other less important issues, such as the game occasionally not displaying the loot icon before the weapon swap icon when looting downed foes, present hindrances that have no real reason to exist.

Metro: Last Light is a great game. It simultaneously presents what people loved about Metro 2033, in a shinier, better performing, and better playing package. It offers something for standard shooter fans on the Normal difficulty level, while ramping up into a proper survival horror game on the higher ones. Better atmosphere than Fallout, better gunfights and set pieces than Call of Duty, the versatility in approach to combat of Crysis, and all the story driven goodness of BioShock. Last Light has its quirks, but is easily one of the most interesting shooters on the market, and one of the best games of the year so far.

Blog Infarcer 2013: They're Still Better Than You Edition

2013-04-02T03:06:00Z

LFYB: We're Back For Another Round

Okay, now I've got to give this guy some credit. This year he actually made it hard to get into his account, plus he changed up the name to make it harder for me to find. Seriously though, who writes under their real name? Accountability is for suckers. Anyways, we're back for another round of hard hitting truths and undeniable facts. Some of you may remember our takeover last year, and I promise we're all putting in as much effort as we feel like to make this Blog Infarcer even better than the last - in all honesty though, that's not really that much effort. You know the drill, only the good stuff in this blog. Only the best bloggers you've never heard of and blah blah blab blah. You know what? I'm not even sure you guys are worth it anymore. I mean, have you looked in a mirror lately? It's really rather pathetic to be honest.

How am I even supposed to write anything in the videogame world we live in today? You're all so uppity and progressive. Respecting female gamers? Promoting diversity of players, developers, and characters? What kind of sick fantasy world do you people live in? It's almost like you want things to change. What's the matter? Games not good enough for you? It's funny, you all act so high and mighty with your accepting natures and open minds, but you're so disrespectful to those of us who think things are fine the way they are. You really think equality and fair treatment is worth it when us hardcore gamers suffer? How is it equal and fair if we don't get exactly what we want? That's why, this year I've brought in a few people who will put you in your place once and for all. It's no holds barred this time around, we're going to show you the error of your ways and write your wrongs if it's the last thing I do. I mean, the last thing we do.

Yours truly, Better-in-Chief, Apocalypse Brony

Up Next: Who's being herded...

Why Can't We Just Have Characters

2013-02-19T20:07:00Z

The first time I played as a female character in a video game was the original Mass Effect. Dying for more of my favorite game at the time and looking for as divergent an experience as possible on my second playthrough I created a female Commander Shepard and started down the rogue path. The very last thing on my mind in the process of starting my second playthrough was that I was creating a female character or that I would be staring at her butt for 40+ hours. It was simply a different way to experience a game that I loved, nothing more and nothing less at the time.

What I found in the process was that, of all the versions of the Commander, my rough around the edges female Shepard was by far the most entertaining. Sure, my male Commander Shepard was a perfect cipher for myself but that by nature made him less interesting. I am myself, obviously, so why when I go to escape from the world would I ever be more interested in playing as myself in a space suit than someone as different from me as humanly possible? In my mind, the male version of Commander Shepard has always been me. That's fine though, that's what he is mean to be and I enjoyed my time playing as him. He has always had my name, he has always made the same decisions I would, and he always will. Female Shepard though, she has always been a character. An intensely engaging way to immerse myself in the story of another person's life. She could be a jerk when I couldn't, do what had to be done where I flaked out, make tougher choices with more confidence.

She also changed the way I play games, something that a male character could have never done. She had me analyzing my favorite characters and realizing that up at the top with Daxter, Sly, and Balthier were characters like Tali, Merrill (Dragon Age), and Elena Fisher. In fact, I'd put Tali and Merrill easily ahead of any other characters. I found myself creating female characters in RPGs more often when given the chance; even when playing in games like Fallout or Skyrim that are played mostly from a first person perspective and in which the gender of the character has little impact on the game itself. Over the past generation it has become an integral part of losing myself in the world of a game, an extra degree of separation from reality, and I don't give creating a female character a second thought.

I've been looking forward to Remember Me, Tomb Raider, and Beyond: Two Souls as games that will give me the opportunity to see a female lead in a tightly knit modern narrative experience for what feels like must be the first time. I've been encouraged by the industry's slow march towards a more diverse and accepting atmosphere. It's that slow but encouraging growth of the industry that had me trying my best not to be angry when Epic's Chris Perna said "if you look at what sells, it's tough to justify something like that," in response to OXM's question about whether or not Gears might see a female protagonist sometime in the future. All I could do was ask myself: Aren't we past this archaic notion that the gender of a character has an impact on sales?

What got me more upset than the possibility that Perna actually believes that games with female leads can't compete, simply because they have said female leads, is the possibility that this mindset is pervasive within the industry. The possibility that the people giving the DICE summit speeches and leading studios believe that and so perpetuate the dearth of quality depictions of women within the industry. Have developers and publisher become so scared of failure that they let feel the need to so sterilize their creations before they even begin the process of creation? At least Perna gets one thing right, I hate those absurdly proportioned fighting game characters.

It's unfortunate that he followed that statement with claims that Epic created better female characters by making them more "butch" and that female characters couldn't sell games. If he had said that he didn't think a female lead was the right fit for the Gears of War franchise I might have agreed with him, but he didn't; he generalized and lumped all games together, bought hook-line-and-sinker into a stereotype. After all, he couldn't be basing his statement on Epic's experience as a developer since - to my knowledge at least - they've never released or even attempted a game with a female lead, meaning Perna likely has no first hand experience with how such a game would sell. Regardless of what he says in damage control at a later date he still echoed a misconception that is probably far too common in development houses around the world than it should be.

What Perna, and others who argue the invalidity of female leads in games, don't seem to realize is that there has never really been a serious attempt to present a strong female lead in the same manner as Uncharted, Gears of War, Dead Space or any myriad other blockbuster games with male leads. In almost every case the games haven't been on the same level as their counterparts. Heavenly Sword was a half decent hack n' slash meant to push the PS3 for early adopters in the absence of God of War. Bayonetta and Mirror's Edge were trapped in niche genres and plagued by largely incoherent stories that contributed much more to their slow sales than anything else. Wet was a B grade action game and there isn't much else I'd qualify as a serious attempt at introducing a strong female lead. At least none that I can think of from the current generation.

From my experience it isn't gender that's an issue. The problem is nobody wants to take a chance. Games with strong female leads don't sell because so few people choose to make a game with a strong female protagonist. Fewer games with female leads means fewer sales for games with female leads. I had just as much fun playing as my pint sized kunoichi Nyx, with her arrows and daggers, in Dragon's Dogma as I did playing as my comically large vault hunter and his shotgun in Fallout 3. Gender has nothing to do with fun, and I'd like a chance to interact with a rich world in which a woman plays the lead in a great story outside of the genres that are typically expected to give you the option to play as either sex. Better yet, why can't we just have characters and quit giving a damn about their gender entirely?

An Appeal to Common Sense, Why Gamers Need to Author More Petitions

2013-02-12T19:18:00Z

The game industry is notoriously cutthroat. Stories abound of men and women who are put on deadline crunches for months, multiple times over the course of a game's development cycle, all in the service of bringing our favorite games to us. Thanks to the publishing structure and nature of the medium it is not an industry that often produces million dollar celebrities on the production side. The result is studios full of men and women that work just as hard as anyone else to put food on the table of their families while struggling with the added pressure of producing a piece of entertainment for millions of people.

Even games that have seen a massive amount of effort poured into them do not always come out as hoped though. The results are games like Medal of Honor Warfighter, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, or Final Fantasy XIII that fail to meet the high expectations set for them. Though no game can be expected to cover all bases for every member of its audience, some fall even shorter of the line than others. So what is the proper response to these games that fall short in spite of the hardworking, caring men and women working on them? What is the solution to the clashes that developers and gamers so regularly experience?

I find the solution quite simple: more petitions. Petitions are the new favorite tactic of gamers in their battle to better games for everyone and I, for one, wholly support it. In the past few years we have seen petitions to add dedicated servers to games, change endings and demand a completely logical government sponsored boycott of prissy DmC Dante - among others. Though they have been a part of the industry for years, the proliferation of the internet has made petitions an even more effective tool. That effectiveness comes from the petition's structure; its organization and collective voice allow us to more efficiently express our opinions.

More important than a collective voice, however, is those petitions' ability to represent a much broader group than the people who actually choose to sign them. One of the most important things that we as gamers can do to help encourage the health of the industry is to make sure that every gamer and customer is represented, even when our small group is the only one speaking. It would be morally unconscionable for us to go about the process of making our demands without including everyone who may not know that they should be making them. After all, it is our right to demand, not simply request, change to these products as we see fit. It is our responsibility to improve the industry on other peoples' behalf.

Some will say that we are not within our rights to demand this change. They will say that our complaints focus on arbitrary, aesthetic elements. Of course, we all know these pathetic claims are wrong, almost laughably so in fact. We paid for these games, our money keeps the studios going, and that gives us as much right to see something we do not like changed as any creative director or investor.

Others will attempt to deflate our claims by pointing out that the signers are only comprised of a small, like minded group of players who share a common dissent. As I have already pointed out however, our petitions represent the entire player base even if only 60,000 members of a popular game's 4 million person player base actually signs. Still more will call it ridiculous that we demand so much change from our games while movies and music see so little of the same, but in our hearts we know it is not. We cannot let the publishers' and journalists' attempts to hide our activity stop us from helping those who do not know they want change.

We must not let the ignorant claims that we are being disrespectful of the work that went into these games bring us down. The masses may think us so, but they are sheep and we know that the only way to get anything done is through veiled threats, thinly disguised slights directed at a production house's credibility, and thugish mob tactics. The time of calmly explaining ourselves on the developers' forums has passed, and they have started neglecting our cries in the places they set aside for us to express ourselves. They say we act childish, rude, and obscene when we use the language that is necessary to get their attention, but we know they are wrong. After all, we know we are right so how can they be anything other than wrong?Games are amazing, beautiful works of art, and that art should conform stringently to our own personal preferences.

For supplementary reading, might I suggest a wikipedia entry relating to this post.

My Letter To Senator Leland Yee, and Why I Think You Should Write One Too

2013-01-30T16:34:00Z

For those of you not familiar with the name Leland Yee, you may be more familiar with his previous work. He's probably best known for authoring a bill that sought to restrict the sale of what he called "ultra-violent" games, a bill that was deemed unconstitutional. It makes sense that he would use the unfortunate events of recent months to reassert his unconstitutional position. That's only half of what has put him in headlines recently, though.

Today he's probably better known as the man who said gamers have no credibility in the debate regarding the relationship between video games and violence. For an overview of what he said, and his recently revised stance, I suggest you check out Polygon's report on the story. What follows is a letter that was written to Senator Yee last week, in response to his original comments:

Hello Senator Yee,

My name is Jonathan Gregory, I am a former Computer Science Major and current English Major at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I'm sending this email in response to your claim that I have no credibility when speaking on the subject of violence in video games. I realize that a lot of people will not respond in a polite manner, so I wanted to take this time to attempt to convince you of the ignorance of your stance. You don't know the slightest thing about me, or any of the other people you so callously generalized.

I am not a monster Mr. Yee, I don't lust for blood and violence. I'm thoroughly against our country's constant military action around the globe and think that, in a perfect world, the need for weapons would be nonexistent Gaming is a way for me to get away from the world, just like movies or books or TV may be for you or people you know. I certainly don't go into a game, even a violent one, with the sole intent of committing violent acts and inflicting pain. To suggest that you know me, and every gamer, on such an intimate level as to be able to question our judgement and suggest we are not capable of properly exercising our right of free speech is horrendously offensive.

Despite what are clearly insults directed from you towards me, and people I know and love, I am still willing to politely ask you to, at the very least, step away from the debate on video games, violent or otherwise. Seeing as you have proposed unconstitutional legislation and continue to pursue the unconstitutional stance you made public with that effort, I as a citizen of the United States would like to encourage you to strongly consider resignation from your held public office; I should also sincerely hope that your constituency is just as offended by your insinuation that they are animals, undeserving of the right to speak their mind, as I am. I don't purport to know you or your core values. I have never met you and I am not one of the people you represent. However, I do find the values you've set forth as your own in this situation to be deplorable.

Signed, with more than a bit of animosity towards you,

A Gamer Who Doesn't Lust For Blood

Although Senator Yee has since backed off of his original statements, he doesn't seem like a man who mispoke. There was no improper translation or misuse of a word when he suggested that gamers lust for violence. He also continues to fault the the video game industry, and not the consumer - many of them parents or guardians, for putting violent games into the hands of children.

He may not be your representative, but his actions could have an impact on all of us. His unwavering, unconstitutional stance that video games are to blame and should be regulated by governmental authority has only evolved in how it is presented. I encourage everyone who reads this to write him in their own words. Whether or not you feel as strongly, or perhaps even more so, about this than I did when I wrote what is reproduced above, I encourage a civil tone if you choose to write him. You can pen your own letter and send it him via Senator.Yee@senate.ca.gov .

Cutting Through the Steam of Valve's Box

2013-01-17T21:17:00Z

The reports surrounding Valve's hardware plans have been sketchy at best and plagued by misleading headlines at almost every turn. The tale of Valve's presence at this years CES reads like a cryptic mystery novel where nothing is certain and everyone has a different story they want to tell. More importantly, the unofficial industry adopted phrase for Valve's expected hardware debut "Steambox/Steam Box" was thrown around by more than one publication in the same sentence as Xi3's Piston small form factor PCs. The result is a bunch of people that seem entirely misinformed when I browse the comments sections of related articles. My goal is hopefully to clarify the current situation for those who were.

Believe it or not, the image above is not an image of Valve's Steam Box. Nor is it an image of a prototype for Valve's Steam Box. Don't be ashamed if you came away from the coverage of CES with that impression though, no one did a particularly spectacular job of reporting on Valve's activities there this year. The image is actually Xi3's Valve funded, Steam optimized PC the Piston. Don't listen to the people who tell you it will be priced at around $1000 either. Although Xi3 did let slip that the Piston is based on their higher end offerings nobody knows anything other than what it looks like at this point, and it is most certainly not the rumored Steam Box.

There's a lot of information out there, and it can be hard to sift through. Ignore the fact that CNET said "the Piston - and any other Steam Box". Ignore the fact that Polygon also wrongly reported the Piston as "the 'Steam Box, modular computer announced by hardware maker Xi3 and Valve at CES". Ignore the fact that Engadget posted a whole slew of images along with an article claiming they were allowed "eyes on" time with Valve's Steam Box prototypes, and that they reported these as Valve's products at all. None of that is true, unfortunately.

At present the Steam Box doesn't exist in a form that any of us are familiar with. No one outside Valve has seen it that we know of - why would they show around what is essentially a small PC anyways - nor have any prototypes been officially acknowledge by Valve as the device they internally call "Bigfoot". In his interview with Polygon, who ironically reported that the Xi3 was the Steam Box not long before, Gabe Newell is quoted as having said, "we'll come out with our own and we'll sell it to consumers by ourselves." That's a pretty definitive statement that should have closed the book on most of this nonsense before it even started, and yet no retractions or corrections have been issued and this misinformation has likely become fact for a good number of people.

What is more surprising is that many publications, like Polygon, didn't pickup on things they themselves reported. Right now what we know is that the items displayed in Valve's booth at CES are nothing more than Valve partnered hardware solutions, something that the company has already suggested they were looking into. We also know that they are working on something, the device they refer to as Bigfoot and that public has called Steam Box for the past year or so. Beyond that, no one who is talking to the public knows anything. When Valve gets around to actually releasing a product themselves you can be sure that Gabe and company will let us know; that time hasn't come yet though, so ignore the people talking about the CES items as Steam Boxes. I hope this has helped shed some light on the situation for those who were confused and encourage you to do your own digging instead of simply taking my word for it.

Why Microtransactions Might Not Be Such A Bad Thing

2013-01-16T21:50:00Z

They've been called disgusting, underhanded, and exploitative by critics and consumers alike. The mere mention of them is likely to induce a groan from a good portion of gamers and angry exclamations from just as many more. Are microtransactions really just a cancerous product of the Facebook, iOS gaming boom though? Or can they be a viable part of everyday gaming infrastructure?

A vertical slice out of any specific portion of the industry can be made to say just about anything; platform X is winning, platform Y is dying, game A is the best game in category B. Have microtransactions been used in disgusting, underhanded, and exploitative ways? Yes, of course they have. Will pulling a few games from the places in which the practice has proliferated so far show that? Definitely. I, however, don't think they are necessarily a bad thing provided they're implemented correctly. Unlike most I'm not willing to dismiss the idea without further consideration. There is a very real possibility here for something that benefits both players and publishers, and there's already a game that proves that perfectly.

Despite all the stink that rose around the game like flies around Pigpen thanks to its ending, Mass Effect 3's multiplayer is a perfect example of a working, non-exploitative multiplayer economy that institutes microtransactions. That Mass Effect 3's multiplayer even exists in the state that it does is somewhat of a miracle. EA, following in the footsteps of other publishers, has already introduced microtransactions into their Battlefield series in the form of unlocks, allowing players to skip the standard progression if they don't have the desire or the time to advance through the leveling system. Mass Effect 3's twist on that, while similar, adds a wrinkle that makes it unique among its blockbuster brethren.

Instead of taking that money and using it as nothing more than pocket lining, BioWare has rolled profits into the release of new maps, weapons, items, wave objectives, enemy types and playable characters in small batches at no added cost to the general population; something especially surprising considering the similar Battlefield option is nothing more than added income for EA. The card game like unlock system of Mass Effect 3 lends itself well to the microtransaction model while unlocks remain easily obtainable for those players that don't feel the need for instant gratification. The goal is to keep a solid player base and encourage those that have left to return. The result is a system that has proven beneficial for both players and developers.

Now imagine that same economy for a game like Call of Duty. Instead of needing to convince people to offer up fifteen dollars for a four map pack, provide them with the option to purchase experience points boosts and custom camos while rolling out new maps for free on a more regular basis. After all, that's essentially what the Doritos and Mountain Dew promotions are anyways, minus the benefit of direct income of course. Both Infinity Ward and Treyarch have made no attempt to hide their intent to crack down on those who boost and cheat the system in their games. In light of that it seems odd that Activision sits idly by, wasting the money making opportunity with literally no downside that is offering those people they would normally ban another option. If microtransactions can support the introduction of new content for the general public in something as expensive as an MMO it can certainly at the very least match the output of a yearly title like Call of Duty and win Activision a few fans in the process.

My optimism about the potential of the system isn't without it's reservations however. Like most gamers I'm what might be called "a little less than trustful" of large publishers. Part of me fears a potential future in which significant content is locked away behind one of these systems. While the system itself works great when focused on unnecessary luxury items, there are plenty of examples where it fails miserably. BioWare's own Star War: The Old Republic MMO is especially guilty of implementing microtransactions in a way that detracts from the experience of its players. Though the potential is there, I don't want to see a future in which I spend more time upset about what's locked away on the other side of an online store's virtual glass than I do enjoying the game.

Articles of the Week - The Christmas Block

2012-12-31T03:52:00Z

It's Christmas time, and that makes it a slow time of the year for video game news and an even worse time to start a blog that features my favorite pieces from the week that weren't posted here on GIO. I probably should have waited a couple weeks to start this thing until 2013 kicked into gear but I was bored and felt it was time to move on after letting some self sparked controversy simmer. Plus, Vaas really wants you to read these articles. Really, really wants you to read them. I've got 10 this week, but hopefully will be making this a weekly feature of just 5. Fair warning though, I have an irrational love of longform journalism.

New York Public Library adds video games to its film and book discussion groups

In the spirit of cramming in as many of these as possible I'll keep it short. The title says a lot about what the news is, but there's a good bit of meat to the feature. While being accepted as a discussion topic at the New York Public Library doesn't fundamentally change the medium, it is an important step nonetheless. Go, read, learn about how the attitudes towards video games are changing.

Source: Polygon

SOE President John Smedley on PlanetSide 2's future, free-to-play and EverQuest Next

I'm normally one of the first people to loudly express my distaste for executives in the video game industry. From the consumer's point of view they often come across as out of touch businessmen brought in to min-max the monetary side of the development process. It's not surprising to see them defending their gaming habits, as Bobby Kotick recently did, because in general it seems like something they should need to do as people who don't play much. John Smedley is an exception to that rule though, and this interview is a perfect example of why.

Source: PC Gamer

Jack Thompson to ECA 'Maybe Now You'll Get It!'

Jack Thompson sucks. However, he is one of the biggest anti-video game activists in the world and if you follow or care about the industry you should know about him. I cut a couple articles about the over talked Newtown tragedy and it's idiotic link to video games. I even abandoned a blog on the topic because I don't feel I need to say anything on it. Those that know our old buddy Jack shouldn't be surprised that he's crawled out of whatever dark hole he found his way into after being disbarred. Jack Thompson is the reason this article makes the cut, and knowing his game could help you expose some idiots, or write a research paper like I did, later on down the road.

Source: GamePolitics

Fifty years since Spacewar!

It's hard to believe that it has been 50 years since the first example of what we would call a video game was invented. In fact, I didn't even know Spacewar existed until I took a look at this piece. Half video, half standard written feature, this look at The Museum of the Moving Image's exhibit on video game history is worth the small amount of time it will take you to browse through.

Source: Polygon

Code Hero: The Kickstarter success story that soured

Yes, another feature from Polygon. While I'm not a fan of certain aspects of the site, namely their generally convoluted attempts at making their reviews more intelligent sounding and the editors' mob-mentality browbeating of games that don't meet their expectations, Polygon's features are a step above their competitors. The case of Code Hero is a perfect example. The site clearly presented the original story as rumor and, while most publications chose to dig no deeper than the outrage of over zealous Kickstarter backers, actually did some investigation and then reported it. Investigative reporting, from a video game publication, who would have guessed?

Source: Polygon

This Portable NES Looks Like It'd Fit Right In at an Emergency Command Post

Kotaku rarely elicits more than a sigh from me, mainly because it's one of the most egregious examples of speed at the cost of accuracy in reporting that the web has to offer. This thing is just too cool not to share though.

Source: Kotaku (Honestly, it's from Reddit but Reddit isn't a publication. I urge you not to give Kotaku any credit. They're only here because I'm linking to their story instead of Polygon's for a change of pace and because Polygon chose to link them as the source instead of the Reddit post.)

World of 'Tweeria': like it or not, your Twitter feed is a massive role-playing game

I'm not sure if I should be more surprised that there's a Twitter-based RPG or less surprised that said Twitter-based RPG stole artwork directly from the World of Warcraft card game.

Source: The Verge

Board games by the numbers: what it costs to Kickstart, produce, and ship a new game

Ben Kuchera quickly established himself as one of the most distinguished writers in games media when he jumped ship from Ars Technica to help launch The Penny Arcade Report. In reality anything on the PA Report could be here, but this article by Kuchera caught my eye because it addresses a sector of the industry that many people forget exists.

Source: The Penny Arcade Report

Violence and Video Games in America

Forbes isn't exactly the first place you'd go looking for stories on the content of video games, and certainly not a defense of said content. That's exactly what this piece is though, albeit with the numbers focused approach that might be expected from one of the worlds largest business publications.

Source: Forbes

The Problem with Arguing Objectification - A Case of Naked Dante

2012-12-19T21:31:00Z

As with most people who follow every twist and turn of the video game industry, I was audience to the recent discussions of women in and around video games. I'm glad it's happening, because it is long over due, but as is to be expected with these spur of the moment sparks of action the whole thing has died down without doing much more than creating a slight commotion. The sparks are coming more often now though, which I hope is a sign of change and not just people looking for a chance to unfairly burn something for the sake of burning something - although that seems to be what happens, and has happened, every time an issue in the gaming world triggers these sorts of mass responses.

I have a problem with one of the main tenants of the recent movements for equal treatment of women in video games though, or at least how it has been argued. I'm not about to argue that female characters in video games aren't objectified, they are, but I will argue that there is a large hole in the argument that needs to be addressed and discussed. I would hope that everyone on this site is above calling me a pig for pointing this out. Above faulting me simply for being a man when I'm pointing out a flaw in a feminist argument, although experience with the topic leads me to believe otherwise. All I have is my word and I implore readers to read without the pretext of the writer's gender. I joined a guild in Star Wars: The Old Republic made mostly for women so that I could have people to talk to that didn't constantly tell female players to go get them a sandwich. I took a leadership role in UNCC's Gamers' Alliance club as a Freshman and Sophomore, and I'm proud to say that it was an extremely gender diverse group of gamers while I was there. I truly want to see this discussion progress, instead of exist only to demonize games that fall into its crosshairs, but it can't do that without identifying its own shortcomings.

With that said I would now like to direct readers to the picture at the top of this blog, if they have not already stared at it enough. The top image is Dante from a trailer for Ninja Theory's upcoming Devil May Cry reboot, the bottom a trio of fighting game characters from Mortal Kombat, Soul Caliber, and King of Fighters if my extremely limited knowledge of fighting games is not mistaken. Despite being similarly racy in nature however, the reaction the two receive is likely to be completely different on the whole if you walked them around and showed them to people who would be considered knowledgeable about the medium. In general, despite a clearly far less clothed Dante (entirely unclothed in fact), most of the reactions I've seen to that trailer are that it is fittingly over the top for the series. I've seen no or little mention of Dante flying through the air in his birthday suit with extremely phallic imagery conveniently taking the place of his... "goods" as particularly offensive. The other image was ripped directly from an article about objectification of women in video games, as such I don't think I really need to explain the reaction to it. Fighting games have been attacked enough that the sentiment should be familiar to most.

So here is where the issue lies. It has less to do with the reaction to both images, or images like them, and more with pillars of the movement which contradict the argument that the objectification of women is a huge problem. The way I see it, there are just two ways that this argument works as-is, within the context of better representing women in the industry. Possibility A: Women are an extreme minority of the gaming community, and as a result any counter arguments on objectification are null thanks to sheer lack of numbers present; thus, making the naked Dante from the trailer into just a tongue-in-cheek joke about the character, and the female fighters a problem because they exist in a realm wholly dominated by men. Possibility B: Women make up a large portion of the gaming community, though still not a majority by any means; as a result this would make the naked Dante from the trailer the exact same type of objectification as the women from the fighting games, items meant to attract an audience that wouldn't normally pay any attention to the game. Note: I know that same sex attraction can play into this, and I'm fine with that, but it is an even more complex topic and, for the sake of simplicity, will not be touched upon outside of acknowledging that it is a thing which will be addressed in the future.

One of the key aspects of the recent feminism movement in games is the idea that female players are prevalent, that they do occupy enough space within the market for their interests to start being given attention, and that they should stop being discriminated against by male members of the community. I agree with that, but the argument of objectification as it has been made doesn't. It's logical to conclude that proponents of improved representation for women in gaming are not going to concede the ground of their relevance in the community, nor should they. Unfortunately, that leaves the argument that has been made for objectification in a bad spot. I'm going to sound like an ass for saying this, but there's really no other way to put it - it's a "have your cake and eat it too" argument as it stands. If women are a significant portion of the gaming community, and again I maintain that they are, then talk of objectification can no longer simply exist as solely applying to female characters. The conversation needs to change from how bad objectification of women in the medium is to what level of objectification of any human being, virtual or otherwise, we find acceptable.

Either Nathan Drake and Lara Croft doing the same things, and making many similar noises, is okay or both need to change. If a male speaking on the topic of attractive female characters is boorish and unacceptable, then so is Kim Wallace gushing about Kaidan during Game Informer's recent discussions of Mass Effect 3. Skimpily clad fighting game characters can't be objectification if Dante with a baseball bat representing an erection is not similarly classified. If equal treatment is being asked for, and hopefully willingly offered by everyone in the community, then parity in these discussions is a must. Objectification is not a one way street, and while pointing that out as a man - despite the fact that I spent hours meticulously combing over my argument to make sure I was 100% clear in its delivery - is likely to get me called scum it's no less true.

What's even more important in progressing the argument is a more mature approach to the topic. We, as a community, need to stop writing stories that reward the extremists who see attractive female characters as an excuse to demonize a game they've never played, such as the new Tomb Raider. We need to collectively do a better job of reporting so headlines like "Girlfriend Mode" that misrepresent what was actually said don't become a replacement for actual quotes simply because it sounds like controversy. We need to stop feeding the equally as extremist trolls who claim to be fighting back against the non-existent female takeover of the industry. While games should be examined in a critical light, from both perspectives in the case of objectification if you ask me, taking the freak-out nob and cranking it to eleven does nothing for the industry or the discussion. All it does is start arguments or unfairly vilify hardworking people and the projects that they've put years of their lives into.

Update For Those Who Did Not Read Carefully: If you read carefully you would have noticed the section that is now bold in the original work before you suggest that I am making an argument about the validity of female objectification. Just so everyone else gets it from now on I will put it in large print font below. Lastly, I know people want more examples but this blog is long, adding more examples isn't going to help clarify the point if you don't understand it. The example is concise, a full on naked man verses a half naked woman. The point of this is to start a discussion and point out a contradiction in the argument itself, not to argue against something I agree is a problem.

"I'm not about to argue that female characters in video games aren't objectified, they are, but I will argue that there is a large hole in the argument that needs to be addressed and discussed."

My PC Build: The Start Of My Trip Down A Dark Path

2012-12-05T15:22:00Z

So I've been throwing around the idea of building a PC to game on for quite some time, and seeing as I've been less than satisfied with the performance of many games on my Xbox 360 and PS3, most specifically Battlefield 3 and Assassin's Creed 3 it seemed like a logical choice. Battlefield 3's console player limit, and DICE's decision to develop their patches based on PC balance issues while applying them to the small console player count, left me disappointed in my favorite FPS franchise. Meanwhile, constantly dipping framerates in AC3 had me constantly sweating bullets and hoping my game wasn't about to crash. I've also been pretty annoyed by the fact that my laptop can only run games like Planetside 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic on the most ragged edge possible. Planetside 2 not running well is one thing, the game is absolutely huge and extremely CPU intense, but the fact that I have to bust the graphics down to low and the resolution to 720p for a less than graphically intense MMO is more than frustrating.

It made sense to find a way of pricing something like this out, deciding how I can cut costs and if, even after cutting those costs, this endeavor is financially viable. I would love to play graphically demanding and/or processor demanding games that I cannot currently on PC without any hiccups, and it only makes sense to go this route since I don't plan on buying into the next generation of consoles for at least the first year after they launch. Building a PC could allow me to put that off until prices start to drop without getting woefully behind on playing new games... or rather more woefully behind than I already seem to be after having not played XCOM, Dishonored, Farcry 3, or a slew of other great games that released this year.

Naturally curiosity got the better of me and, while perusing Reddit's Build A PC thread, I stumbled across the website PCPartPicker.com. Think of it like a hardware aggregation tool. Using it I have created a theoretical build based on the performance I'm looking for first, but keeping costs as low as possible in the process. You can find the build here, but I'll be laying out the specifics below. My final price, as of the time of creating this, came out to $985.06. Of course that price will likely come down after the holiday season and adding one piece of this puzzle to my parts pile, hopefully a discounted version of one of the more expensive parts, is a very real possibility. I am tech literate, you could say, but I'm not super knowledgeable about everything PC. If you're a PC wiz and I say something stupid here, feel free to correct me. My specialty is writing about these things, not the ins and outs of the nearly infinite realm of PC hardware.

First up is the processor. Right now I'm looking at an AMD FX-8150. It's a 3.6GHZ, totally unlocked 8-core processor. It surprisingly came in at a competitive price to AMD 6-core processors and well under the price of it's i7 counterparts. While it's marketed as an 8-core processor, it's actually just 6. The architecture for the chip is built in a way that allows the cores to share smaller tasks between themselves, instead of devoting an entire core to them, thus leaving more of each core to devote to whatever you are running and allowing it to approach an 8-core level of performance. While there are no games on the market that run using 8 cores at the moment, it's an inevitability. Large game worlds, such as Planetside 2's three massive continents, are extremely processor heavy. In the short run, the ability to easily overclock the processor and the pseudo 8-core tech will allow me to more stably run programs in the background while playing games. In the long run it should ensure a little bit more life out of the processor as games get bigger and more complex.

For my motherboard I went with the Gigabyte, and this is a mouthful, GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+. To be honest, I just copied that from the site and have no idea what the middle numbers and letters mean. The important part is that AM3+ bit though. For those of you that aren't super tech savvy, that essentially denotes what kind of processors can be plugged into the board. AM3+ boards accept AM2, AM2+, AM3, and obviously AM3+ along with a smattering of other sockets. More importantly though, if I'm not mistaken it should also support most of the next generation chip set sockets when they come along which means less short term annoyance and at least one more simple upgrade before I have to go about deconstructing my case to replace the motherboard. Another plus, every AMD chip comes with a CPU fan unit, which cut $30-$50 from my overall price.

The other big piece of the puzzle here is an Asus GeForce GTX 660 Ti Video Card with 2GBs of memory. This one is generally more flexible than the others however. Since I expect to pick up my video card last it has the most potential of changing. I don't know of any plans by any of the manufactures to release a next generation of cards anytime soon; although, it didn't take them long to put the GTX 500 series on the back burner in favor of the current benchmark 600 series. It's highly likely that they will role something shiny and new out to go along with Sony and Microsoft console launches as the next-gen really starts to kick into full swing, if not to create a new benchmark then at least to rake in some cash. At the very least I don't expect to see them coming out in the time that I plan to buy my card. Some of you may say wait and see, but everyone I know who went the wait and see route had a parts pile for way longer than they wanted to.

The 660 was an obvious choice price wise for me, and unless something causes major price drops by the time I get to picking up my video card I don't expect to be getting a 680 or anything like that. The 660 Ti came with added versatility for just a little bit more than the normal 660, and DirectX 11 compatibility means I should be playing games like Watch Dogs without a problem. The 660 Ti also supports SLI, which means if I want to beef up my rig by adding in another card later on down the road I can.

The remaining components include: 1 Asus Blu-Ray/DVD/CD drive, 1 Cooler Master HAF 912 case (which is a great deal at just $50), 1 SeaSonic 620W power supply, 1TB of Western Digital Storage (another item that may very well change depending on pricing), 8GBs of DDR3 memory, and a fresh copy of Windows 7 (since 8 isn't really anything special). Now I know what you might be thinking: what about a monitor, keyboard, or mouse? The answer is simple, I already have a setup that works for my laptop being plugged into my flatscreen and I plan to do the same with this tower. My wireless keyboard and mouse may not be the most amazing tech on the face of the planet, but they get the job done. Cutting all those items saved me roughly $350 on my estimated build price and since my TV is 55 inches it's hard to be in the same room as it and not have a similar view of the screen as you would a normal PC monitor from a couple feet away. I have no problem with PC gaming on my TV, so it makes no sense to add that extra price tag in yet, at least not as long as my TV is just used for playing games and watching Netflix.

If you haven't been scared off by all the tech talk, then thanks for reading all the way through. I fear I've started down a dark path here, considering my habit of leaving things unfinished, but for now I have a plan.

Update: Based on Sportsfanatic217's suggestions, I created an alternate build. It's about $50 more expensive since the CPU heatsink is not included, but as he said the i5 does appear to give better gaming performance even though all around the FX 8150 appears to be a more solid choice. I'm really just concerned about gaming, and sales or rebates may be able to make up the rest of my money. And, like he mentioned, more optimized architecture is expected and that may drive the price of the i5 down even more. You can find my Intel based build here.

Connor's Adventures in the Broken Animus: Bear Fight

2012-11-24T20:13:00Z

| Summer, 1778 - An Encounter with a Bear |

Today was a strange day, in every way that the word strange can be defined. I have always known the frontier to be a dangerous place, from my early years in the village when I was forbidden to wander from the valley, and even more so in the years since I met Achilles and joined the ranks of his Brotherhood, though in all my years hunting man and beast I have never encountered something so odd.

It was around noon and I had left the Homestead on foot, expecting to explore new areas of the frontier - why I can remember so little of what I saw in the process of climbing those huge trees escapes me in much the same manner as the memories themselves - I wandered across a large body of water. Despite my lackadaisical attitude towards the trip I did have the urge to arrive at the places I had marked for exploration before the day was too far gone and as such I endeavored to swim across.

Upon exiting the water on the other side of the lake I was greeted by a mother bear and her two cubs, never a good sight when wandering the woods and even less so when one is dripping wet and soaked to the bone. As is to be expected in such a situation, the mother bear proceeded to attack as her cubs fled; I cannot very well blame the beast, for she was little more than a mindless animal acting on her own instinct... that said twas still necessary to defend myself and so I did, finally downing the large animal after she made several attempts to separate my head from my body.

A peculiar thing happened next. Just as I set about skinning my previous opponent, since there was no need for waste even if it had attempted to kill me and I was in no severe need of food or materials, another of the large animals approached and attacked. It is not unheard of to encounter a small group of bears moving together, but this one had not been present earlier. For whatever reason, perhaps the sound of the previous attack, this bear had become interested and then oddly hostile towards me despite the lack of any sort of provocation directed towards it.

In seconds I found myself backed onto a rock at water's edge, readying myself to jump and make a swim for the lighthouse at the lake's center, when suddenly the beast lunged at me. Stepping quickly I propelled myself from the top of the rock, turning as I went to watch the bear enter the lake with a splash. As it submerged, in a rather deep spot - the kind that is significantly more deep and more cold than the surrounding water, I readied for an even more angry creature to emerge and continue its previous assault.

I waited in my stance for what seemed like hours, although it was more likely than not less than a minute and one half, but no bear appeared from the lake. Puzzled by the thought that a bear might have drowned in calm water, they often venture into rapids for the purpose of catching fish after all, I took a moment's pause before returning to skinning the other animal. No sooner had I raised my knife to begin did I hear that bear roar no less than one foot behind where I knelt. There is nothing quite like the fear that comes from knowing you are almost certainly about to be decapitated by an animal that possesses a several hundred pound weight advantage over yourself.

Frantically I turned to see, and you are sure to think me crazy for what I am about to say but it is the truth every word of it I swear, nothing. I saw nothing. The roar came again, this time from below me and I did immediately light out of the area. The beast had somehow found its way underground and did pursue me for some half mile at least and at great speed before I found a tree able to stand my weight and scaled its branches on the spot. Continuing through the branches I managed to escape the strange creature, though how it managed do as it did still escapes me, perhaps some sort of magic, it would not surprise me after all that I have experienced as an Assassin, though why a bear possessed such magic would still remain a valid question. I have not decided whether I should share this tale with the hunters or frontiersmen, they should surely think me just as crazy as you do now though perhaps I would be better off ignoring their petty distractions and focusing on something more substantial anyways.

~ Connor ~

Connor's Adventures in the Broken Animus is a work of fiction based on the glitches and bugs I came across during my time playing Assassin's Creed 3.

Call of Duty: Defending the Detractors

2012-11-08T00:30:00Z

The Game Informer editors have been posting a lot more opinion pieces lately. Some people are ready to sit about maligning them for their opinions; other people actually bring intelligence to the table when making their case. Regardless, some sort of discussion occurs as a result and that's great. I personally love the opinion features because they present an opportunity to write on a topic that I might not have currently been considering. Hot on the heels of my last response, I have a bone to pick with Dan Ryckert's Defending Call Of Duty piece. Saying that the dislike of the franchise is "entirely unjustified" is just a bit too heavy handed for me. There's another, equally legitimate side to argue here and it happens to be where I stand.

Big Doesn't Equal Bad... But It Also Doesn't Equal Good

While there are indeed people who target popular things when weaving vitriolic forum posts, that doesn't mean they're entirely wrong. The Call of Duty franchise's success certainly does speak to the idea that Activision and company are doing something right, but is that indicative of the quality of the games or something else? Farmville is absurdly successful, but it's also bland and exploitative. I can't speak for everyone or definitively on the topic of an opinion, but it seems to me that Call of Duty might be one of the many ventures that benefits from market penetration over quality. Activision's juggernaut has long since supplanted Halo as the game that every non-gamer has heard of, and that may have just as much to do with its sales as anything else.

We see the same thing in other forms of entertainment, it's really nothing new. Consider the Micheal Bay Transformers trilogy. I'd gladly put money on the table if someone bet me that there was anyone in the Game Informer offices willing to say they like those movies. Detractors probably have legitimate arguments for why they don't like the series, but those films still count among some of the most successful of the last half decade. They are wildly popular among the people who don't care enough to pick them apart, but that doesn't make them good movies. It also certainly doesn't mean that the people who don't like them are only attacking them for their popularity. If you ask knowledgeable people about the series they probably are not going to return an in depth answer though, they're just going to say the movies are bad.

The same can be said for Call of Duty, and addressing the more vapid complaints about the series doesn't change the fact that there are perfectly reasonable points backing up many of them. Like Transformers, a knowledgeable minority with criticisms of the game may be just as indicative of quality as its popularity. Though it's not entirely off base to call out the people who ragged on Treyarch for not being Infinity Ward, or the people who have played Call of Duty for a grand total of an hour and take pride in passing judgement without reason, those are the types of people who couldn't find their way out of a room that doesn't have walls. What they have to say on the topic shouldn't be all that is touched upon in a defense of the series. Picking apart the malformed arguments of a mass of misinformed hipsters is about as difficult as breaching the walls of a sand castle, and throwing mud at the people flinging poo doesn't accomplish much because they don't care.

Unfortunately I have stop this train of thought here, since I don't want to tread into the territory of other sections. One last thing should be said though: Fun is objective, and I haven't had fun with Call of Duty in a while. Saying that the "games are still fun" doesn't defend the series in any meaningful way. It's fine as a justification for continuing to play the games, but little else.

The Next Generation: Quick Out The Gates?

2012-11-05T00:00:00Z

History tells us that the launch of new consoles is often rocky. Launch-day game offerings are usually slim and sales don't always meet expectations. Even the launch of this past generation, arguably the most successful in history, saw hardware hiccups and broken games. Most industry insiders consider slow starts to be a given, but I'm not so sure history will be repeating itself this time around. (Note I don't address the Wii U simply because it doesn't fall in line with a traditional generational shift).

The video game industry is a wildly different place than it was when we waved goodbye to the last generation of consoles. When the Xbox 360 launched, conspiracy theorists prophesied the end of PC gaming. Japan looked to be in position to continue a strong global presence in the development space with franchises like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil sure to make waves with so much extra power at their disposal. The PSP was ready to wipe out Nintendo handhelds with the promise of an analog stick and world beating graphics, at least for a handheld at that time.

None of those things happened. PC gaming has come back stronger than ever from its lull, with the more shortsighted PC gamers touting the death of console gaming. Japan has largely struggled to adapt on the design front with a widening audience and a slimming number of gamers willing to put up with their eccentricities and general hardheadedness. Despite decent sales the PSP failed to live up to its astronomical expectations or top Nintendo's handhelds. If anything this generation proved that, in a rapidly evolving industry, counting on trends of the past is no longer a safe bet.

More About Next Gen Consoles

If you want to learn more about next-gen consoles and the rumors swirling around them I suggest checking out this piece from Ars Technica. While I don't necessarily agree that slightly less impressive specs will be harmful to consoles, since they ask so much less from the tech they use than PCs and weren't as far ahead out of the gates as Ars makes them seem, there's certainly worthwhile information to be gleaned from taking a look.

Why should the trend of slow starts extend to this generation then? One of the most damning pieces of evidence against that argument is that both Sony and Microsoft's next-gen consoles appear to be shifting to x86 based processors (see sidebar for source). All you really need to know about x86 is that it's the primary architecture for most high-end PC processors, and that consoles using the same architecture as PCs will only make development easier across all platforms. When paired with companies like Epic who are working to streamline developer tools that means cheaper production, reduced costs from the biggest publisher to the smallest indie developer, and fewer backwards flying dragons.

With console development sliding in line with PC development, and PC development not looking to change too drastically any time soon, there's no reason that developers should have a boatload of trouble. Launch of the Xbox 360 and PS3 suffered for the fact that they actually leapfrogged comparable technology at the time, presenting a much smaller development community with the same kind of problems that a world's worth of PC software developers would have figured out in a fraction of the time. Although not jumping out ahead of current high-end PCs may make for a shorter generation in the long run, it should also result in a smoother transition and better games across the board.

Every other piece of the console puzzles should gather traction just as quickly. The hurdles of building an online infrastructure are behind both Sony and Microsoft. There are no new media formats anywhere on the horizon and 4k displays probably wont be working their way outside the enthusiast market anytime soon. With publishers scrambling to put their products front and center there's little chance that they'll risk missing out by not having their flagship franchises on shelves at launch.

Servers will crash, bugs will surface, and there will be bad games; but these are things that already happen and, with the evolution the industry has undergone over this current generation, there is no reason they should be the rule instead of the exception this time around. Should we, as consumers, be cautious with our money? Yes. There is a chance that the next generation of consoles will start out just as slow as any other. Skepticism is a healthy thing when manufacturers are asking $400 or more for hardware. Make sure to pay attention as the transition occurs though, because the next generation might just wind up getting off the line like an Olympic sprinter and not a hungover college student on a Saturday morning.

My Five Ways To Make The Assassin's Creed Film Not Suck

2012-10-25T21:30:00Z

Assassin's Creed fans were, more likely than not, drawn to Jeff Marchiafava's post about the planned Assassin's Creed film and what Ubisoft and company need to do to avoid a box office flop . Jeff certainly makes some fine points in his feature, but I hold one major point of contention regarding his ideas. Unfortunately, at least from my perspective, that one point is enough to render his remaining suggestions moot, with the exception of his final topic. Rather than write a blog length...(read more)