Battlefront is one of those titles that gave Star Wars fans a warm heart. It was complete fan service done right and it still lived in a lot of fans’ hearts even after years of it being out. As of late, the mantle that held the Battlefront title was given to a company that might revive such a game. The team who made the Battlefield franchise was going to design it and the company who has been known for it’s trash was owning the Star Wars title IP. Although knowing what monster was holding a loved game series, we still had hope for it. It came out and we had barely anything to play. Only a few maps and only one redeemable mode to come back to. Battlefront had some great potential to it that gave hope it’s coming sequel, Battlefront II. They promised so much that we actually forgot what monster was holding the title again. I can tell so many already know about this and too many have already covered it as well, but here we go as they say. Hello and welcome to this widely known opinion.

The game was in hype, if you didn’t already know, so they released a beta to see how cold the pool was. When the community touched the beta, they responded with constructive criticism. Almost every bit of what the player didn’t like was explain calming from what I saw that pleaded for EA to fix. The only worst thing out of this was the lootboxes and the Star Cards pay 2 win aspect, everything else would have been easy fixes for any developer. EA heard our cry and said they would take away the Star Cards and only add in cosmetics. We actually thought they were going to do it! I mean, they only said they would. Said. Anyways, Once the game released in a large hypetrain, the game turned out to be… Well, we already know what it is now. The game was a microtransaction mess that bullied its players to buy them that destroyed casual matches and actual fun in the game, deriving everything that was the old Battlefront games. The legacy we thought they were going to old was already thrown to the floor and shattered to pieces. There is no fixing this mess that EA has created, no fix or patch will change the minds of the stubborn fans of the Classic Star Wars franchise, nothing in the world will help this monster of a company from what a scandal they tried to pull on us.

You may think there might be someone high enough in the company to have the brains to actually fix this, but no! They did nothing to fix the holy promised that was Star Wars Battlefront. As you may have known already, the community is boycotting the game as we speak and anything involving EA’s work, so this might shake EA’s staff right? Well, they wanted to give us a “Q&A.” We asked anything and everything with the amount of faith we had on this once to be thought glorious game and they only answered the ones they wanted. Questions that were easy pleasant for the company to answer and most of the answers they gave us were more bullcrap than No Man’s Sky. It felt more like an insult than anything when they told us that we have to feel like we’re working to get these characters and abilities. The working process of which to unlock these items are at least 40 hours of play time and all that is just for one item. Bull! Bull I say, said everyone on Reddit. And so the same comment that responded with “Work you b**ch,” was downvoted beyond hell itself, holding the record for being the most downvoted post on Reddit. That is a message EA. You should take it to consideration. And… They didn’t.

It took the owner of the IP they’re holding to take down the microtransactions.... Temporarily. A crappy move even though some liberation was taking place. It felt like the gaming community had some control in this instead of being ignored almost like always. Then many politicians and political leaders took action on this game, saying that the game was a gambling simulator and it’s against the law to sell something with such disgusting, unknown rewards. Did that help? I’m not sure, but people are still boycotting the game as we speak. The game got an awful rating, in fact the lowest rating in the decade. I believe it’s still hold the 0.4 rating right now, but I don’t know if EA has learned its lesson or not.

As for the fans, they’re angry. Anyone that destroys a well known property like Star Wars will be hated of course. Other than we already established, the game was thought to have very little problems. The story was okay, what we had was amazing and the perspective was unique, but was so short lived. It was fun seeing Han in a beard. It was fun playing as characters in the Star Wars franchise that we loved, but it started to feel more like a Greatest Hits collection instead of an actual campaign. The multiplayer is actually fun and has only one, large problem on its hands. I won’t say it because you already know. The only thing that could need changing would be the Dog Fights. It was saddening to see a fun piece of work be so saturated with greed, that this game could have been fun and decent if the game was never involved with you-know-who. This game wouldn’t have been the same disaster that was the release of No Man’s Sky.

When I got my hands on it, after hearing all of those horrible reviews, I thought the game was decent with some good fun to it. I can see how everyone was so mad and felt betrayed, I mean they did say the DLC would be completely free, but if they avoided being greedy with the game would have gotten a lukewarm reception. Critics would have given the game something like a seven or a  possible eight. Then the artistic critics would say it’s not great and give it something meaningless like a five or a four. Everyone would have lived on with their lives without a crisis in our hands that everyone and their mothers have to know and deal with.

What went through their minds as they did this? I mean of course money was stapled to their freaking brains, but this is a major market that can reflect and change on many things; it’s not just America, it’s the entire world that has to adapt to this kind of economic greed. Freaking Belgium outlawed the game outright and this would hurt the company’s financial gain. Then Hawaii came to say something and have everyone else feel suspicious to investigate. Now everyone has all eyes on you, EA. Running won’t help and talking yourself out won’t either. What you did is unacceptable to both the community and the industry. Why the hell would you do this when it was such an extreme tactic that was more noticeable than an unsubmerged, German U-Boat? 

But in the end do we have to hate on the game? For the sake of hating the company we have to do it publicly, but what about overall? Should we believe the great title Battlefront is dead and ruined for good? Well, they brought back the servers for the classic Battlefront games on PC, so if you want to waste all of your hype, go to those games. I mean, you’d be going against the Boycott, but at least there’s a good Star Wars game out there that you can still enjoy. I know this is kind of a strange post, but I hope you enjoyed this and ‘til next time…

Play More Games!

leef i woh si sith

Developers reflect the company they work at and vise versa. The impressions we get from those companies matter because that shows our overall thoughts on the companies. I mean, since 2015, people have been identifying Konami as a heartless, greed machines that wants to kill anything great about them. If that’s no evident that we like to give those kinds of companies an identity, so here’s all the ones I want to point out! Hello and welcome to this really strange post.

Playstation, The Giver of Storytellers

I know there are some platformers they’ve been making in the past, but that was back when Platformers were famous. Now, games likes to follow this standard of decent storytelling and derive their games on that factor. What about the gameplay? Well, who cares when the games are all about the story? And trust me, there is so much story to care about, you will forget the awful pieces of gameplay there is in the game, and the small amount of fun you will get you’ll have to work for! But what about Knack, you say? We don’t talk about that game… We don’t… I know that was an exclusive that was produced and planned by Playstation, but we do not mention or think about that game at all.

Nintendo, The Polishers

If you ever watch a playthrough of a Nintendo game (if they don’t copyright it), the person playing it will mention the ever so famous words “Nintendo Polish.” It’s has been burned into the minds of gamers and has been the ultimate judgement for games played made the normies out there. Nintendo makes a game that has a minor mechanic that most players would try to exploit can’t be exploited. What do you call that? Nintendo Polish. Every other game can’t do this because they’re not Nintendo. I mean, c’mon! They’re Nintendo! Nintendo knows all, knows everything, proper keepers of game design!

Activision, The Creators of CoD

Freaking Normies, everyone knows that Activision is God! Just kidding, what I’m trying to say is that no one can name a single game by Activision that’s not Call of Duty. I can understand why, they made this game a yearly released title, why wouldn’t you think they made CoD? I mean, they did make games like Skylanders, buyout Crash Bandicoot, were legends back in the Atari days and made and tried to milk the Guitar Hero genre, games you would never imagine would  be made by the CoD creators, right? It’s kind of bad, but it gives them the money.

EA, The Pot of Gread

Draw two cards, please. EA has always been the company that makes games for their better being. You will never escape an EA title that doesn’t have you spend real money for goods like Cosmetics or Easy Unlocks. Their biggest controversy was how their latest game was nothing, but a Pay 2 Win game. The company has done this kind of greed before, but on a smaller scale than this. I guess their lasting imprint in the world will be how they ruined a great looking franchise.

Konami, Use to be Great

Remember when Konami was great? Pepperidge Farms remembers. Konami was a great company that made some memorable games like the Metal Gear series, Contra, Bomberman, Silent Hill and even the beloved TMNT game on the SNES. What even happened to their name? The company had a great name for what it’s worth and had some great line of game, what made them so hated and created the hashtag F**k Konami? Oh… They fired and disrespected the most beloved developer of the company, creator of the even more beloved series, Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima. Wow… You killed yourself when you thought about it, Konami. Since he was out of the company, same goes with him working on the latest MGS game, giving us the game unfinished and gave Collector’s Edition Owners the what you had left of the game, to make us even more mad. Well, there name will be forgotten in the void of our minds until our generation dies, never to be talked about with respect or with a kind attitude. Sorry Konami, you were d*cks to Hideo. So ends your legacy.

Bethesda, Leaders of Single-Player

When you think about Bethesda, what do you think of? No, not the glitches. Yes! The fact that most of the games they’ve made are single-player! You thought I would kick that dead horse? Ha, I’m not that desperate for low hanging fruit! There hasn’t been many companies ready to take that kind of risk to create a game that would dare to not have multiplayer, because the game would end there and there wouldn’t be an active player-base to rely on for potential sequels. It can drive the game down because of how much less there is compared to game like Call of Duty or Battlefield. Bethesda, as brave as they are, they make games for the singleplayer-elitists out there and they love it. It might not be great game or completely finished, but at least they tried. I loved their take on Wolfenstein and Doom so much that it’s surprising they even made games like Elder Scrolls or Fallout. They might have tried to take advantage of the games with paid mods, but we shouldn’t get too far into that… Should never mentioned… Never…

That’s everything that would make me write about a paragraph of each company! Seriously, there were so many that would be summed up with just a few words. I mean… Naughty Dog… Uncharted is the only words that come to mind. Well, I hope you enjoyed this satirical piece of mine (And when I say Satirical, I mean it. Please don’t take what I said seriously), because it was fun to write. As always…

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EAT PANT

There was a game that came out somewhat recently that would top many games on the Steam Most Bought list. It has so many players constantly playing to this day and have gained a massive following as to how huge the impact was when it exitted the beta phase. That game was Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Whoever made this game and whoever helped make it happen got millions upon its release. It was on everyone’s minds and eventually destroyed those on top in the most played list on steam. The game, as you can tell, was a masterpiece of game design and it was challenging to master. If the game is so famous to begin with, there has to be some clones to follow, right? Well, you’d be surprised. Hello and welcome to this mind opening thought blog.

As the game came out, there was one title struggling to gain some decent money. They almost lost the IP and the player base almost went as far as Battleborn, they panicked and made a free mode that anyone, even those who haven’t gotten the game, could play. It was Fortnite: Battle Royal. Carries similar aspect from PUBG, having players go all out on a large server on a small map that continuously got smaller as the match went on. It looked the same, but was far from what PUBG was. Despite that, the game gotten on top the most played and most bought with PUBG which bumped up the sales for Fortnite way up and raised its player base to an all time high for the game. This caught the eye of the PUBG developers and out came them talking about filing a lawsuit in any form of news media. The game was too similar and needed to be taken down, right? Well, you’d be wrong. Game Design isn’t an art according to law. It’s just a piece of gameplay, not an art piece on display in a Art Gallery. There are many people who copy many game designs on almost all platforms in games. If we had those things copywritten, the concept of genres would be gone and the market would crash due to low output on games to play. FPS’ wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for Doom Clones, so this lawsuit seems very silly if you think about it.

And come to think of it, the game isn’t the only one to have an all out brawl with a hundred people. Minecraft was kind of the start of it, fans making a server that was Hunger Games themed, but the server list was limited to only twenty or thirty people. Then there was the DayZ clone, H1Z1 which had a buyable mode that had players go against each other as they spawned in random areas and had to scavenge houses to find weapons and gear to kill each other with. Then, talking about more recent games, the Culling which was the most similar to both Battle Royal and Battlegrounds.

The Culling was considered a Hunger Games themed game, being picked by rich people to fight in an arena for their amusement and for you to gain something for yourself. Players had nothing on them besides their fists and had to find or craft what they could to survive. If you wanted to have some bandages you had to find it, get some leaves to craft it or buy with the money you get from a vending machine around the map. The map continuously got smaller and force players out from hiding to thin out the number of players. It was a fun game and was played by many people on youtube. It was a hit, but was hardly know to many people outside of the PC community, kind of like how Rust was. See, you raised your eyebrow in confusion as I said the name. So, the person that should feel like suing is Xaviant Games.

But why would even have the word of them talking about the lawsuit be out there? I mean, if you look at it, it can give your either bad side or a good side to the lawsuit, having people support one side or the other. I don’t know if that ever holds heavy in law, but it really gives the game a bigger notice. The news talk about the game that some people probably never heard of and it gave their attention to that game. You hear about and now you want to get it, assuming you never heard about it until that article. A marketing gimmick it seems, but it also gave both games attention. The question arise as to why they wanted to sue the people who made this mode similar to their own. It’s like how Mortal Kombat was when it became controversial, people talked so wrongful about, how it made anyone a killer and showed the worst kinds of gory graphics in the world just made kids want to play it even more in the arcades. After hearing that kind description really made you want to play a few rounds with Scorpion, eh? It gave the developers attention and the game was already in unwanted public attention, so the game became a successful hit that demanded sequels. Why give both attention to your game being high and mighty and the game that you claim is the enemy? Seems like you’re giving them a hand with their downloads, Player Unknown. I mean, there are so many mobile versions of your game, Player Unknown, that look so similar and copied from your game. Why not sue those Asia companies copying your game? I mean, they might not be in the same light as your game nor will ever be the same, but they pretty much copy all the assets from your game and made it mobile. There’s even a Minecraft one out there with the same iconic character with the helmet and explosion behind him, but it’s blocky instead. Why not strike your powerful fist on those companies? Probably because they’re small that probably don’t have much and doing that would look d**chy, but you do it to the big boy in town, Epic. No attention to those small guys down there in the mobile section.

It just seems stupid to me that they would sue someone over game design or a similar genre. It’s like as if From Software sued the people who made Surge or Lords of the Fallen. And seeing who they’re doing it to is kind of suspicious to me. Speaking about attacking a company for similar game design looks like it would have more to it that that, like someone slipped fifty grand in someone’s pocket in the elevator. I don’t know what could have gone, but I read that the lawsuit was never acted out, so this whole thing could be try or not. Maybe someone put some sense in Player Unknown, I don’t know. I know this is a strange post and probably didn’t go anywhere, but added more questions to a few month old thing that happened, but I hope you enjoyed this read. Thanks and ‘til next time…

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It Should Have Died

To enjoy something, you must feel challenged to do so. I don’t know who said that, but I think those play very nicely to any game in general. Whenever you get ready for a round of football, you never expect it to be easy to make a touchdown. There are human barriers that’re in your way and the entire team has to get one person across the field with the ball in their hands to score a point. Sounds easy until you make those human walls move. It might sound frustrating to get past these meat shields with a single football in your hand, but the challenge to do so is really fun even if you get pushed down. It’s just the thrill and the challenge that makes the game so fun, which is why Difficulty matters in games, because no one will want to play it when it’s too easy to master or even beatable in a manner of minutes. Difficulty matters, as I said before, and that’s why games like Dark Souls is so world renowned… Too renowned in a matter of fact… The whole thing about difficulty in games, is that it varies games to game. You’ll never need the same kind of skill in every game because you need to master a new challenge instead of the same old run across the screen type of deal. There’s a reason why people aren’t liking games where you kill things in the first-person, because they all kind of have the same elements of challenge. When a game came across the seas of Japan and landed on our shores, we got a new thing to master than feels so much different and now we have something to become the new standard to hard. That games that created such a ripple in the mindsets of Gamers around the world was Dark Souls… The most annoying game to ever exist…

The game became a legend and scared anyone away from the game’s legendary of a legend difficulty. It made players rethink what made games hard, having people blame themselves instead of the game for once and actually having people look at their surroundings before going in places. People called it revolutionary while others called it just plain stupid because it’s scripted events in the game that give evidence to the player with claw marks on the floor and scorched doorway, but f**k those guys because they don’t know us. It was amazing. It created a new kind of genre for people to love… Souls-Like… Which was quickly changed to Soulsborne later on, but let’s forget about that for now. People used to exaggerate how hard the game was. It was a joke that was soon taken seriously. First a reviewer made a comment about a realistic mechanic on Battlefield, which you die quicker than most shooters, which he began to call it, “Like Dark Souls.” As to how that’s true or even remotely like Dark Souls is beyond anyone, but it was a small ripple in an ocean. Many people heard it and had no mind to it as very few commented about it.

Then within the years which people got hyped for each Dark Souls game passed by as well as the mixed conception for the clones, people have gotten games that were harder, more challenging to the player, something new. A motor cross game with realistic speed mechanics and a great working wind engine was released the public. Difficult, of course, but it was a fun challenge that was enjoyable to explore with new mechanics. People had fun and it was great, then reviewers stapled a phrase to the game… An ungodly phrase that no one wanted to hear or even believe. It’s the… Dark Souls of Racers… A disgusting phrase that spoiled our mouths’ as we read reviews and watched videos, but that was not the first or even that long ago.

Twas the year of 2017 it happened, where that phrase sparked a larger fire than before. Anything remotely difficult that people had their hands, they tainted it with the annoying phrase than became a meme. “This Indie game is the Dark Souls of the Indie Community!” “This game was so hard, I almost thought it was Dark Souls!” Words that made no sense which was overused in almost every review. It went as far as being stabbed in Cliff’s Ego during his earliest work. Even the greatest masterpiece of a game, Cuphead, was touched with such a sinned phrase, which speculated a theory, to a easter egg reference. To most it was laughed at and poked fun of, but Cuphead was no joke. Fan Theories, Speculations, the belief that the Souls games are connected to the same Cup-World. A cancer to say the least, but the only word to describe how much we wanted a new challenge. We were given such a great a game that challenged you and taught you how to do things you barely did before and now we can’t get it anymore… None to satiate our lust for a new challenge to endure and enjoy besides the clones that come after its inspiration. After the end of the Souls series, it felt as if we lost someone dear to our hearts and we coped with us comparing it to something we can’t exactly get anymore, desperately trying to find a reminder to what great challenges and accomplishments we faced with the great Dark Souls series. We didn’t take its death well nor its final words in the DLC, so we went to find something like it, a reminder (as I said before) to cope with our loss of such a rare game series to come by these days. What is my point you ask…? I don’t know. My sister wanted me to tell her why I hate the fact people keep comparing hard difficulty or a mechanic in a game to Dark Souls when it’s remotely nothing like the series nor is it like it in any way. It’s like comparing Mario to Sonic, very different and nothing alike.

I know this is a bit of a sh*t post, if you may consider it as such, but I thought it was funny to write. Very stupid to read and feels like a kid trying to hard to be artistic in his words, but enjoyable to me. I hope you like this stupid post and ‘til next time…

Play More Grains

Dark Souls of Youtube

The challenges I gave you were very simple, think of a game you would make and you guys delivered, but that doesn’t really make you think like a developer. This challenge is going to be very different compared to the others and will be a very hard challenge. This time you’re a developer back in the nineties, the age of Pokemon is at rise. Your company, GloboChem, wants in on the portable gaming action, so they chose you and your three man team to take on the task to go against Nintendo. It’s Christmas, so you have an idea of a gaming stocking stuffer, so you and your team will have to make a cheap, but fun portable to please the children.

The only rule I have is that you’ve got a $10,000 budget, list what materials you would use with that budget and how much you would pay your team per day. I want to see you guys plan your things out, tell us how you would go about this trick, what you would do to make these things happen, what small games you would make for a cheap, but fun gaming stocking stuffer. Please remember the budget and all that jazz. I know this is complicated, but you can ask me any questions. The deadline is the 15th of January, so I hope you enjoy this challenge as much as I liked writing it with a friend. Til’ next time…

Don't forget about this guys!

Play More Games!

P.S. I would like to announce that Haley is going to help write the challenges with me for now on. I wouldn’t ask he any questions about this challenge, since I completely forgot to talk about this rules of the challenge as we agreed to write about this. Sorry Haley, I’ll let you do a lot more than just talk about the challenge next time.

The sun falls to the horizon as the moons light the rest of the night, the cold winds flow through the crisp air as the sound of hooves hit the ground. Fours Knights of the English ride at the night as a guardsman’s body was seen in the distance. “Fallen near,” one knight says. They race to the body, the sound of their armor and the stomping hooves startle the birds in the forest wall. The knights are horrified by the sight, a puddle of blood next to one, a gape-mouthed body with a bolt sticking out of its skull and a Joraal  lying with a bolt in his chest. A knight steps off his horse to see the bodies. One knight spoke, “What do you suppose happened here, Gallingway?” his voice muffled in the helmet.

“I don’t know, but it’s obvious he killed these men.” He looked at the guards.

“We must find the owner.” A Scout spoke.

“Sir,” he pointed, “The sign.” Gallingway took a long look at the sign, a place he hoped to be treading, the fake meeting he wished to have with the owner. This was no longer a safety check on the farm, this was an investigation for the Knights and Scout.

He made a smile and said what was on the blank of wood on stilts, “Promised Farm of Higgins Estate, Bakery and Management Dealer.” He took off his helmet as the long, red feather on it tickled his cheek, he spoke with concern in his voice, “We must find the reason why this Khaja Slave was out here and why he killed these guards this far from his estate.”

“What should we do, you highness?”

“We approach him with dignity and loyalty like the rest of the Knights of the King. James!” He pointed at one Knight, “ Grab the guards and hitch them to your horse. Scout, you carry the Khaja as well.” His men carry the bodies on horseback as they race towards the estate.

Gallingway thoughts were filled with the killed men they found, curious if he lost his chance again. He pushed his horse to go faster, barreling ahead of the rest. He was concerned as those behind him tried to match his speed. He could see the Estate Gates.

A commotion arose in Gallingway’s mind, a plan of war, a war that could be won. He betrayed all his commanders, his friends, his own king he saw so corrupt. He was nervous, but determined to start a conflict, to finally show the true Red Banner. The Revolution starts, he thought.

They arrived. Two men opened the gates as the horse was lead to a hitch. “State your presence,” a man with a dark voice spoke. “We had no papers saying the king’s Knightsmen would arrive.” Gallyingway looked down to his hand, one gloved hand with a strange mark on the back of it.

“We came because of a commotion down the road by your farm. I wish to speak to the owner.”

“We don’t know of such commotion, so that’s not ours to discuss. Run off to your duties.”

“I am the second in command with the King’s Army, I can have your people put into Jail, tear down this farm and sell all the Joraal for cheap. Who is the owner?” The man clenched his gloved fist as the men beside him moved back. Steam began escape his glove. He aggressively walked towards Gallingway.

“With what had happened to your officials recently, I can hardly believe such a thing can happen at your government’s state. Go, you Red Hog, I don’t want to see you anymore.” The Knights had their hand near their sword as they waited for the gloved man to strike. Gallingway stood proud both his arms behind his back, under his red cloak.

“Carter!” a withered voice yelped. “Let this man do what he will.”

“Sir, this man is invading property without the proper papers to-”

“No need! If they are of Royal Army, they can pass by-”

“But sir, they need to abide by their own law-”

“It does not matter,” he shouted. “You heed me or you be fired, revoked, gone.”

“Yes… Sir…” he walked away in shame as his guards lead them inside.

Trophies were in display, Hogs Heads, Buck Antlers, even an old Dragon’s skull hung proudly on the wall next to the rest. The Knights took a closer look at them and saw a golden label on them, each having the same three names being referenced: Hance, Hannible and Jeremy. They enter a hallway and find pictures posted on the wall. This man must have been rich, he thought, pictures weren’t as easy to come by in a plantation of any kind. The hallway ends as they find a double door guest room. A beautiful design of branches and flowers bloom and shine on the wood of the two doors. The handle looked comfortable to hold in your hands as it created this eye-catching design of a tree branch. The Knights were never to witness the decor of the King’s Castle nor did the officials he hand appointed, it was a secret and a legend for the people to speculate his living style.

Higgins, at the door, opens it as a fireplace is lit across the room. A large fur chair beside a small table holding a bottle of whiskey and two glasses rest in front of the fire as heads of the creatures across the known lands mount the walls with great pride. As they walk inside this beautiful room, they notice portraits laying atop the fireplace, pictures of two boys and a fair man with them. He noticed what caught their eye, “Fancying yourself of my youth?”

“Parden?”

“The pictures. The only thing that can make me smile. Although… There carries a sad ending to them.”

“Age?” Gallingway responded.

“Not quite.” His smile faded as he grabbed another portrait of himself and the two boys. “You see these two fair men here?” He hands the picture to Gallyingway as the other Knights and the scout wondered to stare at the creatures.

“I do.”

“They were my sons, great boys they were. Never seemed to disappoint. They always found a way to make an angry old man like me proud.”

“What were their names?” the scout asked.

“That’s not polite there, boy.” Gallyingway shouted.

“It’s okay. I’m happy to share. The one there, holding the bow, is named Hance and the I have my hands around is named Jeremy.”

“Mind I ask-”

“Ask away, Knight.”

“What happened to them? Did they run off, leave without writing?”

“No… Once they were drafted in the war back when the damned Khaja were an unraveled mystery, they were killed and never to be seen again as men of the English Army.” He stared at Gallingway. “Since I found out of their deaths, I wanted to know who did it, what kind of people were they when they sunk a dagger in their souls.”

“Why think that?” Gallyingway said with a soft voice. “It was a war of the savages, those people fought long and hard against us, why couldn’t they have killed your sons?”

“Because it was too good to be true. Messengers told me they were missing and the only things they found were their badges and nothing else. They were apart of the Keltic Conspiracy, the battle where no man was found on either side.” He took a swig of his English Whiskey. “I gave a whole lot of money to trace their bodies. Whole lots.” Downed a quarter of his glass. “As we took the expansion outward, we found the village of Khaja. First time seeing them and we found them with graves of the our own in it. Found our men’s helms on pikes above their graves. Disrespect it was. Sold those bast**ds as slaves as we dug our own and gave them a proper burial.” He grabbed his Whiskey bottle and poured another glass for himself. The Knights and the Scout watched him with long faces, worried looks. “Do you know what we found when I came along?” He smiled. “My sons. Both buried in the ground with pikes driven in their skulls.”

“Were you furious?”

“By the gods, yes I was furious!” He raised his voice. He paused as he realized who was at his presence. “Sorry, I just have some rampant emotions. I believe I forgot my herbs today, so I may appear a bit tipsy.”

“Sure it’s not the Whiskey?” the scout whispered.

Higgins changes conversation, “So, I imagine you fine Knights in shining armor have yourselves a lot of these Khaja, eh?”

The Knights smiled as the scout cackled, “You bet this one does!” He slaps the Knight on the back.

“I do, I do. Wife loves the freetime she has.” They all laughed as Gallingway stare at the fire. He wanted no part in this conversation, he wanted nothing to do with this mindless laughter. As they made more remarks about their Joraal, a scream disturbed their cackling. “What the bloody hell was that!?” An explosion could be heard in the distance. A man rushed in slamming the door open with blood dripping down his face.

“We’re bein’ attacked! They have cannons, arrows, the whole lot of weaponry. We have to leave here, Masta Higgins.”

“Whose fight us?”

“No time, Masta. We mus’ leave to ya shelta!” Gallyingway takes off his helmet and marks it with an X with his knife and places it back on his head as he follows the guard out.

Fiery arrows fly from the forest borders as flashes from the cannons there revealed themselves in the dark horizon. Guards at the gate were trembling as they dragged men away from battle as they screamed for mercy. One with friend was laying on the floor staring, blank faced at his leg in the distance lead by a blood trail, his friend making sure he goes through fine. Houses were broken down as the wheat of Higgins’ field was burning, creating an illuminating light into the skies, drowning the stars out. Gallyingway was not fazed as the Knights and the others looked away from it, avoiding the carnage they swore to face.

“What should we do, Higgins?” The one threatening Gallingway earlier was asking for advice, orders to follow in this strange time. “The guards are thin, our arms are shortened and we are not fit for this kind of battle. What should we do?”

“Gather the Khaja and hand them weapons.”

“Sir, that’s insane!”

“There’s a reason why they’re attacking and that’s to free the Khaja, so put them in front of their crosshairs!”

“Incoming!” A guard yells as a cannonball hits the walls.

“You have no choice, Wallas! Just do as I say.” They go as he looks dumbfounded, not knowing what might become of them after this.

“You heard the man! Give the Khaja our arms!” He appointed three men to the arms shed as they grabbed armor and gear to the Joraals. Afraid and forced to fight, they all bared the likeness to a guard. They were told to fight by a few guards as they all refused.

“You cannot make us fight in such a battle!” a Joraal spoke. A guard grabbed him and stabbed him in the thigh.

“You will fight or you will put down here and now.” They all ran to the gates, arms at the ready to strike and take a life. Men watched them as they fought, making sure they did as they were told.

Gallingway ran with Higgins and the others as they past by men with crossbows and shoulder cannons. He couldn’t believe how armed this plantation was. They seemed ready to the teeth that would be in this situation. It seemed that the screams and cannon fire was farther away, safety felt granted to the Knights and Higgins. They were at the other side of the Plantation. Men coward behind the untouched soil there as men brave enough were making sure some were going to shelter.

“Have you seen Jeremy!” Higgins yelled at a nearby search party.

“He’s at the shelter alread-Argh!” An arrow hit him from the forest walls near them. “They’re flanking! They’re flanking!” Fiery arrow began to fly towards them, destroying all the huts they could. More guards flee to the shelter with Higgins as it feels like this battle is a loss to them. A whistle sounds is coming towards them as a cannonball explodes in front of Higgins and Gallingway.

A ringing deafens Gallingway as he could feel his armor embedded on his body. His helmet was gone, the ringing begins to move to his right as he tries to get up. He screams in pain. His leg is broken. He could hear the fires near him, but the ringing won’t stop. The shrapnel grazed the right side of his head, some still peaking out of his skull. Joraal in armor begin to scavenge the area in front of him as Jeremy could be seen trying to run away, but one of the scavengers catches and knocks him out near his owner’s body.

A familiar face could be seen by Gallingway. She called out to him, begging for him to answer, but the ringing stopped him from listening to her. She screamed for someone to pick him up as I stood to see wandering souls begging for a path to be lead upon, all of which lead to the void.

I like the environment in games, the world it inhabits and showcases. Sometimes it can be a vast jungle of an urban city like Fallout 4 or it can be ruined world full of culture like Darksiders 2, and what they all have is a story embedded in every landmark and ruin that it can be amazing to explore the deep depths of what the devs made. To be honest, my dream is to put in the time to make a vast world that has so much to explore and culture that would be hypnotizing, making you wish you lived in this world. If you haven’t read my poorly written series The Story of Jeremy or at least my abandoned Amnesia series, I have a few already in mind to create, but the one I want to talk about is the world in Story of Jeremy. The vast land you would tread is called Cloven Isle, the known world of the English and the only place to find industrial cities and business. Hello and welcome to this Game-Making Challenge.

Mainland

Nyma, the country of civilized men and women, is a vast valley and prairie where the Prairie is a rural country that the farmer rules and the traveling merchant thrives. Although many miles away from the King, they still are considered men and women of the English Empire and support them thoroughly. The Valleys are where the English cities lie, where stone streets lead the people to and from capitals to capitals, where the working man strives for the English Dream and outnumber the beggar. In the Main Capital of Colleign, is where the royals and loyalists stay as the King rests atop it, living in luxury.

The Farmlands of the Prairie will be a place where law isn’t fully enforced and many raids take place. The player will begin here as he starts a revolution with the Joraal, a feline race that has been enslaved by the English, attacking farms to free slave Joraal and witness what kind of madness their owners have put on them. The player will see some awful things there during the main storyline, where slaves are conditioned to be less than human and turned to an obeying, lifeless coil. That’s only one of many the player witness. Your choice to put those kinds of Joraal slaves down or help them regain their sanity. It’s your choice and either one will have a downside.

English Knights, Scouts, and Rooks will patrol the roads of the Prairie, having them take down revolutionaries or at least bring some protection to English supporting farms and merchants. The raiders around there are dangerous and will attack anyone they can, English Knights, Revolutionaries, even defenseless farmers there if they please.

The Valleys will be more industrial and political, having more people insult you for your ethnicity or political stance and seeing a lot of begging men sitting on the cold, stone streets. Although the town seems almost in economical ruin, the citizens are considered wealthy enough to be in the middle class and have less crime than the Farmlands in the Prairie. People aren’t considered of right mind when you’re a Joraal. Seeing they’re in favor of the King, they don’t take kindly to any Cat-Like men or women in their towns, although no laws against them being within city walls. Some will insult you and give you a choice to react to it aggressively, verbally or ignore it all together. Your choice in doing so will weigh positive and negative very heavily. For example: if a man insults you and you ignore it, people will begin to continuously insult you until it evolves to straight violence.

There are seven capitals: Aeris, Thara, Acura, Themwoode, Erveland, Dimwall and Colleign. Each one having themes to them. For example, Aeris is a weapon sporting capital that aren’t afraid to show it by any means as Themwoode practices the English language and how to use it in any form. Basically meaning they can give you better insults that mean something instead of an empty threat. The player will be able to go to and from capitals, having different experiences that really tell what the people living are like and how they live.

Beyond the Forest Wall

The people of Nyma have a religious belief that beyond the wall is many evils that no man could surpass. Just inside the border are human-like monoliths that watch out whoever has bad intentions on the forest they’re entering. If you have a good soul and good intentions on entering the forest (meaning you finished the revolution of the main quests), the monoliths won’t have consumed by the forest. Beyond that is the forest border is the lost civilization of the Keltic Reign. This is where the ruins will be seen, statues, temples, even large cities that the English haven’t fully recovered its history. Living there are creatures only heard in legends and the player can find documents of them to see their weaknesses and where they might tread. They all do many different things to the players, such as the Krill, a hive mind crystal that takes over the dead. If they slash you, you get a lasting damage effect that takes sometimes days to finish it’s effects. This will be a kind of fetch-quest kind of thing, document every kind of species beyond the forest wall and bring a piece of evidence from the creature. Would be a great piece of world-building in the game, having these creatures only heard in legends and classify them as real for scientists.

The Keltic Ruins will also carry some madmen in there, people who have crossed the border and couldn’t come back, from all links of civilizations and some would even bare the English Flag, to show how many have turned so quickly. Besides the Ruins, there still lies the sea. The sea will be a high-level area as well it being only unlocked when you complete the main quest. It’s where all kinds of dangers roam, sea creatures that can topple warships and deadly hunters that can sway an entire crew to kill themselves. The player will have to manage his crew as well as fighting off everything he encounters or try to ward it off if you are afraid to lose a few men. And if you couldn’t tell, the crew will determine how fast and reliable your ship will be. If you lose them all, you will have to go off by escape boat to the nearest island. Speaking of Islands, they will be the many stops in the ocean, finding places to recruit men or Islanders to go off on your adventure. Some will need convincing to go and others want money in return while some are in desperate need of adventure. These people will also not be human… Entirely. Some will be kinder creatures out there and even some civil ones that you would normally attack. All their personal perks will affect you and your crew as well as the ship itself and will change the look of the ship as you keep recruiting. For example, Civil Krill will turn your ship into a hive overtime and it will become faster and every attack you deal on a sea creature or monster will poison them like as they did to you not too long ago. And a small chance of the creature you killed will become a krill and aid you in your adventures. Other more legendary creatures like Titans are not going to become a Krill. That would be too cool.

Besides all that I explained, the landscape will carry some great landmarks for the player to explore as well as ruins. Some will be completely void of all life as others will be infested with whatever took over the ruin. There will be legend landmarks, places you could read in a book of legends, such as Keddrick the Giant’s lair along with his quest line and story and the Gambling Tower, a place where everyone is trapped to gamble their lives away until they reach the top.

The legends will be a core part of the game, making them the most memorable, having nothing to gain from people’s quests like in other games, the quests are found by the player instead of given to him, having the game make you feel like you stumbled upon it.

Creatures

As I pointed out before, the game will have a mechanic of documenting legendary creatures, proving their existence in the realm of science and magic. There are three categories to put each creature in Mystic, a category consisting of creatures that have unimaginable power or misunderstood power, but this category can be untrustworthy since these creatures of legend or rumor. Creature, a category that used for anything below human or near such a thing; these creatures are considered animals of nature and are thoroughly examined by scientists. The Human category is classified for anything will the same differing intelligence as man’ Joraal and Giants fall in this category. The ones I have in fleshed out right now are the Krill, a hive mind infestation that infects the dead and kills anyone who appears as a threat to the hive. Titans, a guardian-like creatures that scales taller than the largest building known to man, a huge danger to all they come across and the common mind can only see it as a large shadow. An Amino, a creature that have eyes that puts their prey in a relaxing, paralyzed state as every feeling, even pain is more soothing than the last, making feasting on you all the more peaceful. Una-Gwin is a river monster that stalks their prey, purposely making them paranoid and makes sure to bring them down into the river to drown and feast upon them like piranhas. Harpies are a peaceful creature that can make bad days into good ones by playing a song with their enchanted lute, sometimes even nesting near an estate, giving the landowner good luck until the Harpy dies. There is many more creatures I have, but that makes this entire read ever so longer to write. I don’t know how I would makes these creatures into a balanced enemy in the game, but I think they would work somehow. I haven’t really put much thought into making this world in a game. Of course they all would have habitats to live in, only meeting them in a certain area, but I hope I can make them all a cool piece of the world to experience.

I hope you enjoyed this challenge and I do hope this was a good read. Please tell me how the world is and if I fleshed it out well. I would love any criticism you have on this entire world I have. Anyways, I hope enjoyed this The day to post the challenge is on monday, so I hope you enjoy making your own worlds and have a very great valentines days this month. ‘Til next time…

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Greatness Awaits

If you are a regular player in a PC game like G-Mod or Counter-Strike, you have been banned at least once in your life for the stupidest reasons in the world. Why? It’s because of Admins that don’t know how to deal or take care of anything on their server. Some even abuse their power and ban as much as possible because they had a bad day. It’s something that a lot of immature kids and adults do in the game. It’s natural. At least none of our favorite developers out there are banning people like immature adults, right? Right?

Oh no

Overwatch has been a game that a lot of people have been flocking to after hearing rumors of how great the game is. I mean, my cousin who hasn’t played a game since the SNES age bought the game because of how many people loved his shirt he obliviously bought. And I know I have said I hate the game, but the one thing I don’t think I mentioned was how much I appreciate the concept. Would I say it was great? Yes, but there are a few problems with the game that hasn’t been fixed since launch. A lot of you Overwatch fanboys out there might be really pissed to hear me say that it’s a broken game and state that they made many fixes for characters in the past year it has been out. I’ll have you know that just because the update says “Fixed” on it, doesn’t mean it’s good. D’Va used to be the one character to distract everyone, she was vulnerable and not much of a bullet sponge, but she could do enough damage to catch the eye of the enemy team. That was launch. Because she has been annoying a lot of players too often with her core mechanic, she was nerfed completely, so she could be “Playable,” as stated by the developers themselves. You can no longer flash your defense matrix at any time and her drop-off damage has been shortened to only do a fraction to what she once did before. She is no longer a tank apart of the team, she is now a speed boosting team member that stays behind cover and wait for players who ran astray from their team. How is that fixing? I don’t think the butt of a joke that is her Ult was fixed or not because you could hide behind a pole, next to the explosive mech and not take any damage as a tracer, but I hope it stayed because that’s what makes a fun game, right? Some strange piece of physics in a game that makes us all laugh, right?

Then that’s one thing I don’t like about the team taking care of Overwatch, they don’t know what’s good for the game and their community. I might have pissed off more fanboys and girls by saying that, but obeying complaints from angry players isn’t a fun option to take. I mean, if players started saying Doomfist should be a healer, would you like that? No, right? Well, that’s what they did with Mercy a couple updates back. Remember when she was the most sought after character in the game because she could revive the entire team? Well, now she’s another kind of cannon fodder for players to have a second thought for because now all the annoying Battle Mercies (which in any game with a healer is not a good idea) can have fun with their most requested character fix. I know that many more fanboys are trying to tell me she can still revive, but they don’t know I played the game multiple times with a friend that spammed invited me to the game. I played it quite a bit to see how much it changed and I don’t like what they did to the only good healer in the game. She is the same playable Mercy as before, but her core mechanic to revive everyone in one go is now gone, the reason to make a Mercy aware of where he/she is in the battlefield and the enemy’s primary target when seen. But all that is beside the point, my reason to bring these things up is because the community is pretty bad and the developers are treating them as if they know all of the game design and how a Team-Based should play, something I should have continued on with.

Recently, the team announced that the team will be watching out for reports and players that are being too “Toxic.” If you don’t know what that might mean, then let me enlighten you. Say you make a gesture (a taunt that was put into the game) too much, you are toxic and may be banned or suspended for some time. That happened to a player a while back believe it or not. And if you refuse to play a character the team is asking for you to play as, you are now toxic and deserve to never play the game again. That kind of stuff shouldn’t be heard by the developers. Developers know the toxicity of the players they attracted and they try to stay away from them in the best ways they can. I mean, criticism is always heard if said enough times, but if it’s stuff like how too many people are using a character the right way or that a healer should protect himself, those things should be ignored. I know you might not like how Hanzo is playing, but he has about 125 HP and is easy to kill if you know how to move that mouse. The whole thing just boils down to getting good at the game instead of making the game adapt to you.

I know that many of you are questioning why I care about this in a game that I don’t even enjoy, and I understand that, but I take a developer’s decision by heart and treat it like it reflects myself. And making a Toxicity Police to watch over your game and ban those who fall in the toxicity is basically a digital genocide. Laugh all you want, but that’s the only thing I can compare it to, so stop judging. Anyways, this is also giving some people too much power, having people report other players for something they didn’t like and get them suspended for not playing a healer. I know it might be a bit harder than just reporting it, but I feel this can get out of hand and the devs won’t see it until it’s too late. I mean, (I might have said this already, but who cares) a player was banned for being good as Tobjorn. He wasn’t a newb or trolling, he was a high ranking Torb that knew what he was doing. If this can happen, you can get banned for anything right now.

I know many people appreciate this whole situation saying that it’s in good intentions, but this can be so bad. If you play a match in a game and you’re afraid to even talk or let alone do something slightly offensive, that’s not a great time. I’m not saying it will kill Online Gaming, it will shorten it if others adopt this, making online games less common. It might bring some single-player games some fame, but it would make multiplayer games a cesspool of toxicity and teenage spunk. I really don’t like the fact I have to watch out what I say in games, since it has a sense of escapism in terms of speech. I love to criticize this map, but I don’t wanna offend someone on the server who loves it. I don’t wanna say this character isn’t great and offend someone who has a body pillow of her. I don’t wanna feel afraid to say anything about a game or anything in real life in a game because someone out there might hate what I have to say. I bet I offended someone with this post alone…

Am I banned now, Blizzard?

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post, which I believe no one wanted to see this, but I hope someone out there shares my opinion on this whole situation which is long ago outdated. Still, I hope someone out there enjoyed this and ‘til next time…

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Not  Scurry at Night...

8.50Before seeing some videos, I didn't even realize that Blitz was coming out this month. And considering I hadn't played more than 5 minutes of any other game in the series, I didn't have much reason to buy this game. 

However, after seeing a few Youtube videos, I was convinced this was a promising game. Perhaps not great, but fun. I picked it up 2 days after it released to the PSN store, and played for 3 hours with a friend that day. 

In those 3 hours I don't think I've laughed more in one sitting of a game ever. From punching people through end zones, to smashing players in the air with big heads, to having a boss battle with a team of horses, this game is hilarious. The random commentators are always good as well.

The game-play has an oddly satisfying and addicting feel to it. After seeing that first hit, it just makes you want to play more, even if your losing, just to see what else you can do.

But they're faults to the game. One angering issue was that my settings didn't save twice. Meaning I had to exit the game I was in, go back to the menu (because you can't change much in-game) and set them again, each time I played the game.

I also found a lack of depth in the game-play. I under stand that this is an arcade-spirited game, but the lack of any runs, is a little odd. 

Online game-play is problematic. If lag doesn't ruin your game, then it becomes a contest of who can abuse the game more. From tackling receivers right before the ball is thrown to them, to infinite flea flickers, the online is rage inducing. I understand that is the games focus, but anything truly competitive should be left to Madden and NCAA. 

Overall, for 15 bucks, this is a good title. It's a lot of fun, and very fun to play with someone else. Unfortunately the replay value of this game is great if you want to play it a lot. But picking it up every once and a while on a rainy day can be great. 

It gets a 8.5 for its fun, and refreshing game-play. But the issues it has really stops it from being a great game. 

I love Nintendo, okay. I have an appreciation for their games and some that may be unpopular, but I still consider their works a piece of art. So if any of you Nintendo Freaks think I hate them and me making this post is offending you, then just don't read. I know there are some things that a lot of you, or maybe some, that don't know Nintendo's process of making a game. Some are actually very poetic and better than most companies who handle a new title, but they were greedy when they were in the fame back in the 80's. Hello and welcome to this truth-filled thought blog.

Okay to start, since Nintendo was taking the light that was Atari, they were the only ones who were the desired company to sell games. Yes, there was the Sega Master System, but no one liked that console sadly. So, to not do what Atari had did (Having any game to have their licensing on it and sell it without seeing if it would sell), they made an entire process to make a game be on Nintendo. The game had to go through this process of whether the game would be fun, work on the console and nothing to upset the audience or destroy Nintendo's image. And before they accepted, the company or person who submitted their game had to pay $200 to see if they were worthy to be on their console. To many, this was a good security check for a game, to not create the crash of 83 again, but it was a painful process. Having to spend as little as possible to be apart of a still new business and risk whether or not this game would sell after paying a hefty $200 to just have it out there. There were some who went past that process and made illegal copies of their own game, but those game were sold either in an alleyway or in a Swap Meet, having barely any cartridges sold. 

I believe there was even a private protests against NIntendo's policy to put a game on their console, but was mostly unheard of to the public, barely having any lash on the company. I don't know if that's true though. I found it on a site a while back, but can never find it. You can take my word for or not, it's your choice. Anyways, This also made some good with the games on the console, having people to strive to do their demands or do multiple submissions after tweaking your game, making the game have a passionate team working to release their game on a successful console. Unfair, but it encouraged better performance. Even the head of Nintendo at the time, being a person who never played a game in his life, was passionate of making any game fun and making sure he had the right people do so such as trusting Miyamoto in what he thought was a good game. You can say that their policy was bad, but it had a perfect purpose in the gaming industry to stay alive for what it was. 

Although that wasn't as fiendish as most can think, but Nintendo had another thing that they still do today, along with one other thing. Whenever they thought something they released wasn't going to sell past the Japanese market, they decreased stock in European and Western markets to make them more valuable and given more fame than they already should. The first product they gave this treatment to was the hated Zelda II: Adventures of Link. It was a first attempt of a sequel and the fear of a game to fail for them was completely possible, so to not be fired from the company, they made copies low and you know the rest. In America, the game was sought after, having people create lines that would go through stoplights out of the store. There was even a guy who went cross country for the game that wanted the it for collector's sake, he was put on the news and the game was given free advertising, having people speculate that the game was awesome and needed to be had. So in return, the game wasn't considered a fail to the company.

This followed with other products in the future such as the Amiibos and the famous NES Classic Edition. Remember the whole Amiibo shortage, having some Amiibos exceed the thousands price range? Yeah, that was a tactic for Nintendo make a product more mainstream. And how they stopped production for the NES Classic to leave room for the SNES Classic. No, it was so that they don't have to waste resources to give the product a shelf to call home. It's a pretty greedy tactic, but Amiibos were stop talked about recently and people are still willing to pay hundreds of dollars to buy an NES Classic, so they did a good job being able to make us want it. 

Past that, Playstation was going to be the next console for Nintendo while partnering with Sony. They had so many redesigns, having them fight whether it should be cartridge based with games  and have a CD player attached to it or have it be entirely CD based. At the time, that was the staple for any piece of technology, being determined as "high tech." They separated after a few disagreements and Sony made the Playstation, while owning the rights to name entirely, in protest against Nintendo, making the console entirely CD based, making it seem more high tech than any other console. I love that, though. Sony had some balls to do such a thing as this. And to make it even worse for Nintendo, they created a new way of putting a game on a famous console. They had no process of which a game had to be accepted, they just paid someone a lot of money to flip Nintendo off with the next best game after Mario. Many would say that Playstation had a poor attempt of fighting Nintendo, but look at them now.

To keep their Nintendo Policy, they made their next console, the N64, to be only cartridge based. Although being inferior to their competitor, they still made great games in a cartridge that made so many great classics and generation defining games. 

What does this have to do with being fiendish? I mean yeah, that can be just a refusal to follow what their competitor has, but it was basically game lock in hiding. If you look at articles from that time, there are a lot of people complaining about how Final Fantasy 7 wasn't on the N64. Well, FF7 was a game that carried three CDs in one box to play the entire game and CDs carried 12 time the memory and power of that compared to a cartridge. How many cartridges do you think would be put in an N64 box of FF7? Maybe 5 or 7, being generous. It would be overpriced, seeing how much materials would take to make that many cartridges, having to make every other version follow the same price or similar, having the game be a risk to both companies.

They basically made this console cartridge based to put another lock on their system so no one can sell a game without acceptance by Nintendo. They followed this rule since that console, having the Gamecube use awfully small, but cute CDs to play games and the recent Switch being only cartridge based, having every developer to go through the acceptance process with Nintendo to put it on their console. A smart move, even without their $200 fee before acceptance. I guess Nintendo had more balls than Playstation had. Although now it doesn't matter to be on a Nintendo Console since Xbox and Playstation have an easier and painless process to have a game out there and considering Indies have the PC realm to play with. Now, it's just Pirate Protection instead of Game Lock. 

I would have to say, even though Nintendo is a friendly company, they're still a corporate company that want in the competition as much as Xbox and Playstation after taking Nintendo's thunder. What do you guys think? After reading this, would you still call Nintendo a friendly company to trust or did you already know this and don't care if Nintendo does something wrong? I would actually like to know honestly. I want to know if the majority know about these things. Well, I hope you enjoyed this read, been a while since I wrote something this fun, so I hope you like it. And 'til next time...

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Roodistf

I love history. It's something that I loved since I was a little kid. Although most of it was depressing and scary to a lot of kids, I thought it was cool how all the choices one person made changed the entire world and its thoughts. It reflects a lot of our society and helps people understand why people do things and how things are now. I just love it. Many Historians say that their Gramps influenced them about how awesome history was, but me? It was all about one game and that game was Call of Duty. Hello and welcome to this Community Writing Challenge.

Call of Duty was the main influence with me, how the game was based around a hundred year old war known as World War II, seeing that a game like this was based on a real event was mind blowing to me as a kid. Saying that these people in the game might have been real and the battles in the game were all real and key events in WWII history was just amazing to me. Although the war was one of the biggest world changing events in history after the "War to End All Wars," WWI, I still thought it was cool. I believe this game was the reason why I love The Iron Giant so much. 

WWII shooters have been a big part of why I'm a gamer and I followed those kinds of games as a kid, playing anything that CoD had. Up until CoD's modern era games, I still look for those kinds of shooters such as Wolfenstein or Brother in Arms. I've always loved them and anything that followed historic battles. Battlefield 1 being on of my favorite Multiplayer Shooters, despite its flaws. 

I was interested in history and anything involving it, either it be altered or true stories. I made sure I was in classes that involved history from Elementary to High School. Although I got a few bad grades out of it, I still loved being in those classes, learning about the choices that people made then and how it affected all of us. How Napoleon sold French Colonies to the Americans called the Louisiana Purchase. How he lost in his Conquest of total control of Europe, having the Russians do something called Scorched Earth. And how Hitler repeated his action after admiring Napoleon, causing another Scorched Earth in Russia. How about when Kennedy denied air support during the Bay of Pigs, having ground troops lose the battle, screwing up America's image?

I just love history like that. Especially the Cold War times, being the most fierce war in recent times, although having no conflict or battle with either nation. Just pure Political Drama. That would have to be my favorite time period to learn, having it be like a War Drama, but without the war. I think Black Ops. 1 was one of my favorite CoDs, taking place in that era. I know it's all politics and all, but know that I don't pick a side. I just like watching the chaos, why I love Parliament meetings so much. Not like a meeting in America where everyone talks and acts civilized, they bring out their fists, arguing and all. I just love watching a political figure punching someone over political differences. 

Well, That's basically it. I know this is short (and I'm sorry for it), but I hope you enjoyed a little insight of my personality. What do you think about history in games? I hear a lot of people say it's wrong to do that. You know what, make that the topic in the comments. I would love to hear what people think about historical games. Is it an honorable tribute to those who died in the war, or is it an insult? Talk about it! 'Til next time...

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Destiny was one of my favorite games of 2015. I didn't like it at launch because of how restricted it felt and DLC being overpriced for what it was. My sister got the game for Christmas with all the DLC and it was great. I played for two years and hearing the developers were planning a new game was amazing to me. For those who think the game was dead from the start, hated the fact that it was and doesn't deserve it, it was a chance for Bungie to redeem themselves in the awful attempt of creating a great story in a game, and so far after the Beta, I am generally pleased with what they have done so far. 

The game throws the play in the story mode from the beginning and shows off the characters (you go to constantly in the first game) in action. I loved that part of the Beta, you never see them in action, but you're told that they're the most elite Guardians on Earth and know more tactics than a war veteran. I am genuinely glad they're doing this, they made them so cool and seeing them show off their moves is so rewarding. You see Cayde kill a few things as he casually strolls by, Ikora destroys a ship in anger, and you fight alongside Zavala! I doubt any of you would know these characters beside Cayde, but god those people were awesome, giving this meaning to these characters instead of NPCs you receive missions and rewards from. And seeing the place that every Destiny Player called home was a battleground, being destroyed constantly by the Cabal. It really gives off a certain emotion you're suppose to feel from the disaster you're witnessing. And the villain is so great, having a goal that affects you and all your friends and you want to stop him. That's the kind of villain I want from games these days, they always try to make it poetic or out of place with no clear goal for them to follow. I hope they make him more of villain in the game, either killing key characters or something of that sort. 

The design they put in the maps were all so stunning as well. I mean, there was a few things that were out of place, like some clipping shadows or objects clipping inside of each other, but I can get over them. I especially love the Plaza part of the story mode, where you fight with Zavala, it looked like the Tower was vulnerable and needed heavy assistance. And I noticed the Ball you play with in the first game is popped and melted in the stairs heading towards Zavala. I don't know about any of you guys, but I had some fond memories with that ball... I loved playing soccer with it... That moment seeing that ball destroyed and gone forever, I want to kill every single last one of those Cabal freaks. 

And apparently, there's not going to be a silent protagonist. Those of you RP Players won't be given a chance to voice your own character anymore since the protagonist already has one. Personally I like that, I always thought it was weird when your character doesn't respond to certain reaction in the first game, it just made it feel as if your character wasn't involved. And the voice actors playing the guardians are great, they're easy to listen to and have a powerful voice, which fits the voice of a hero that's going to save everyone and the "Light." The only thing I didn't like about the Beta was that the races were randomized along with the sex of the character. I'm all for a strong woman and all, but I don't wanna be an Awoken. I know that this is all that they have finished at the moment, but I want to see voice differences in the game! I guess it's just one of my opinions I can't get over... Yeah, it is. Either way, I loved the Female Awoken Voice Lines in the little story we had, they all were well acted and I can't wait to see what else they have in store for your character. 

Speaking of your character, it seems like you're going to have all your weapons in the beginning until the end of the prologue, because you get a freaking Exotic at the beginning and everything you have is Legendary. I don't know if that's actually going to happen, but I hope it does. I think it would support the player's hatred for the villain and motivation to stop him , taking all of your gear and having to start over. Plus, having to go from Last Gen to New Gen sounds cool to me, your gear transcending from the best you had in the old game to best you had in this new one. I would genuinely love that if they did that. 

On to the weapons, they changed up the weapons in the game, primarily for PvP sake. If you're unfamiliar with the previous game's weapon slot, your primary had three weapons: Auto Rifle, Scout Rifle and Pulse Rifle. Your Secondary was Shotguns, Sniper Rifles and Fusion Rifles then Sidearms later. And your Heavy was Machine Guns and Rocket Launchers then Swords later. Now you can have an Auto Rifle in your Primary and Secondary Slot. The reason for this is because your Primary is Kinetic Damage and your Secondary is Elemental Damage. For those who don't know, Kinetic is good against enemies with shields or weak spots, while Elemental is good against Armor and Elemental Opposites. The Elemental Opposites in the first game didn't really matter since mostly any type of damage does the same amount with each weapon regardless and had nothing to determine which element was which. I don't think it would matter in this game either, but who knows, they have a Scorch Cabal as an elemental enemy. 

The abilities, on the other hand, are changed up. The Titans are given the Striker and Defender Class, both from the original game. The Striker Class is different from the first game, having you do a ground pound and walk further to do it again with the same amount of damage. The grenades are the same for the most part as well as the punch. Then there's the Defender Class, having a new ability instead of creating a bubble shield. You can become Captain America with a shield to deflect bullets and beat your foes to a blood pulp. If you want to use the bubble shield, you can hold both button to activate the ability and the bubble will appear, doing the same effects as they did before. You can also have a Wall Shield or a Cover Shield. The Cover Shield being a waist high cover, having the player be able to provide a new cover to duck under. The Wall Shield a complete see through wall. You can't shoot through it, but you can see where your enemies are heading or where they're going to flank. 

The Hunter has the Arcstrider and Gunslinger classes. The Arcstrider ability is mostly just Blade Dancer, but with a staff. You can activate that ability and go berserk on anything you can find. The grenades are pretty deadly, having some long lasting areal damage or a quick blinding attack. The Gunslinger is pretty much the same as the previous game's, but you get a third-person view. It still does an awesome amount of damage and the grenades are pretty much the same.The Third ability can be a bit of a downgrade since it's just a roll. The Marksman's Roll is just a plain roll, but automatically reloads your gun. The Gambler's Roll is the same as the other, but if you run into someone, they take damage. I wish they did something cooler with that.

The Warlock has the Voidwalker and the Downblade. I wish they put more thought with the second name since it's such a cool Class compared to the others. Voidwalker is like from the previous game, but instead of throwing a single energy ball, you can choose to shoot a cluster of them at an arc. It takes some getting use to since the changed how the projectile shoots, instead of it going in a straight line, it shoots at an arc (as I said before). The grenades are pretty much the same as well as the melee. Downblade is similar to Arcstrider, but instead each swing is a devastating projectile and you can fly. It really does a lot of damage, having an unfairly long run. The grenades feeling the same as the Super, throwing a ball of burning light or a fiery explosion. The Third Ability is pretty useful in almost any situation: you do a healing ward,  where whoever stands in that area will be healed and get an over shield. There is also a damage boosting ward, where whoever stands on that area will be damage boosted. I think this and the Titan are the best so far and can save the team instead of yourself. 

Moving on, there is a lot of redesigns for original enemies, like the Fallen, the Vex and the Caba. The Cabal still have those small heads, but not as small to laugh at them. The Fallen might have a new ruling house (or clan, look it up), having them look more edgy and with darker, red clothing. The Vex look pretty much the same, but the Minotaurs have a weak spot now, being the chest. I like that since they didn't have one in the previous game, they were just annoy bullet sponges that teleported and  dealt a lot of damage. Besides that, there are new enemy types for each race. The Fallen have new invisible enemies that hide and snipe the player from afar. When the player is near them, the invisible sniper will dash to a safe spot while cloaked, having the player scramble to the enemy's new location. I think this is a new breed of Fallen since these guys have two arms, but some kind of insect legs on their torso. They're mostly cloaked when you fight them, so you don't notice most of it, but when they dash they do this spider-like crawl while doing so. I love it personally, because I like creepy things, but I can see these things becoming a big annoyance to the community, since they always have dead-on aim whenever you try to dodge their attacks. And the Servitors, the big robot eyes, have a new ability. Instead of healing nearby enemies, they now shield an enemy like one of those Vex Taken, not being able to kill the shielded enemy until the Servitor is dead. At least they made them more of target, instead of a healer than did so little for his job. 

As for the Cabal, they have four new types of enemies on their hands (obvious because they're going to be the main focus of the game) and they're pretty fun to play with. There is the Scorch Cabal, that I mentioned earlier, that can shoot balls of fire at the player and do constant damage on hit. If they miss, the projectile hits the floor and causes that part of the floor to burn, but do constant damage upon hit. They're as easy as most flamethrower enemies, having the fuel tank protruding over their back being an easy attack since it's just above their head. There are the Shield Cabals. I know they were in the previous game, but these are better. They have an energy shield that deflects all damage until you hit the center and disable the shield entirely. They can also make their shield cover more ground than themselves, but still hold the same weakness for their shield or just rush through it and punch the guy instead. I'm glad they made this change since they use to stop the flow of battle, having players leave those guys for last or waste ammo by missing their feet or hands. Makes them fair to fight, but still a challenge and doesn't stop the flow of battle. There is also a Butcher Cabal (not their real name) that do massive amounts of damage in one hit and have the most health out of the Cabal class. Although I understand they're suppose to be the feared enemy type to make the player focus more in the game, but god don't they just destroy when they give you horde of them. I wish they were more prone to stagger since nothing else about them would have to change, I just want to have a mode to escape his grasp when I need it. Then there's the cleverly named Cavall, the dog types of the game. If you ask me, I hate it when they add dogs to a game. They're always the annoy enemy that just like to stop you from having fun. They're pretty easy to kill and learn, but they are so low from the screen that they can sneak up to you and bite you on the ass. What makes it even more annoying is how they can push you, sometimes destroying your momentum.And the one thing I don't like is how they put so many on screen. Three is enough, but when you spawn four packs of them, it's like running from an actual, single dog. I guess this is just a personal opinion, so I guess you can ignore that one. 

There's also a new ability the Cabal have that allows them B-Line towards you. Why is that an ability? Because! They got an explosive stick on their wrist! I'm not kidding. I don't know if it's suppose to be a stick or a blade, but it still is something to runaway from. I like it since it adds more diversity to them, having them do more than just dodge and shoot at you. If you have a Wall Shield up and they pull out that explosive and run through the shield and rush you as if you were the quarterback. I love how they're changing up the enemies instead of giving us a rehashed version of the same thing. I'm genuinely glad they're doing something to make this game different from the last. I mean, there is some things to get use to, but who doesn't want to see something new. 

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this Abstract Review. I really enjoyed the Beta and it feels like the Story is going to be better than the last game, even though there was barely any in that one. I can't wait to play the full game when it comes out and see more new changes they made. Again, I hope you liked this and 'til next time....

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Saw Something...

As a person with some rare opinions, I've always wanted to say all of my thoughts about the games I either dislike or love. Since I scrapped about 14 of those kinds of blogs, I thought it would be better if I did a brief opinion based say on games I played that wasn't what people said it was. I know that this could make people mad, but that's my intention. Although I want to do that, I don't want to make people hate me. This is all opinion, like I said before, so don't rock your socks off with what I say. Hello and welcome to this overrated countdown. 

10. Overwatch

I know many of you might be groaning at this entry, but there is a reason why I put it on the bottom of this list. The game is repetitive and doesn't share as many modes as other multiplayer shooters out there, but it still has some great character pairing. What that means is that you can combine two player's characters with each other and create a devastating combo that can hardly be stopped. I like how the developers get to update the game with new content, giving us new modes, new characters and new maps all for free. We keep the new characters and maps, but the new modes are always going to be taken away. There was a recent mode where you play in Co-op with other players, protecting waypoints and other objectives, and it was actually fun. Too bad it was a limited time event, so anyone who wants to play that mode lost their chance. 

There is also something that sucks for new players, since there are so many people playing this game with high ranks, there are so very little players for new ones to pair up with. Match Making is just terrible, having to wait for a match after getting into a skirmish, leaving the only fun being the meaningless Team Death Match. It's nothing like how TF2 is played and can't be compared to such a glorious teambased game. Even if the new Meet Your Match Update f**ked most of the game's great qualities. A good game to have, but doesn't deserve the Game of the Year Award. 

9. Elder Scrolls Online

I've talked about this game before, me being mad about how it didn't turn out to be the game I wanted. Either way, the player base has been considerably high. Although not as big as WoW's player base, the game is still being played today. I'm genuinely surprised and a seeing that game got over a 7 rating on most reviews. I really don't see how great this game actually is. For starters, the game gives you an awful clan option that restricts you from certain races and one race is taken away from the roster, the Imperials. If you wanted to be an Argonian in a different clan, you had to pay to be able to do that. And if you wanted to play with a friend in a different clan, you had to find him instead of join his party. I really don't know how any Elder Scrolls fan could go through that without throwing out your PC. And the combat is so awful, having the player not have combination abilities, giving you all these abilities that you won't even want to use, because this one move is quicker than the rest.

The game's missions are even bad, being surrounded with people doing the same thing, your missions are interrupted constantly, having to wait for them to finish or restart the game in general. It feels as if the game was meant to be single player game because of all the mission glitches, where player followers can't do the same mission as you. And the microtransaction are just atrocious, locking certain items from the player and making loot feel so worthless. The game even taunts you for not having the DLC missions, having locked boxes everywhere that would have the player get any better loot from the vanilla game. If you thought Destiny was bad, check this game out. 

8. Pokemon

Don't get me wrong, the first game was fun. I got the game in the late 2000's on a Gameboy Color I got from Goodwill. I had fun with Red and it was very fun. When I went to the newer games in the franchise I found the same game with the thirty dollar price tag. I mean, there were some different pokemon to learn from, but that was basically it. I don't know what else to talk about, each new game from the franchise is just the same rehashed game we got from the 90's. I know that there will be many Pokemon fans that are going to debunk me on this, but my opinion still stands. I just don't get why this game keeps selling when the game is just Pokemon Red and Blue remastered. Why are people hating Bethesda for selling Skyrim 3 times over, when we got more remasters from Pokemon. 

And I don't like how there always has to be two games, having different Pokemon with the same game. It seems kind of cheap for Nintendo's sake. And they even made the newest game have an easy cheat for the player, using the best Pokemon they have and all the XP they get goes to the rest of the Pokemon without having to use them. I know this is a kid's game, but still, the audience is still clearly 90's kids. 

7. Kingdom Hearts 

I vividly remember this game releasing on the Playstation 2, the game had some great graphics for the time and handle very well for a PS2 game. The only thing, I think, everyone disliked was how the game had such a boring and confusing story. I know there is a lot of people that enjoy as much as any other Final Fantasy fan, but justifying that the game had a complex story is like trying to say the Care Bears had a compelling Narrative. It was boring (like I said before) and confusing. Besides that, the gameplay was not satisfying, having some repetitive combat abilities and awful mechanics that were just frustrating to handle. I hear that the team improved on FF 15, but I genuinely dislike how repetitive it was. I never player FF 15 yet, but I hope it's better than Kingdom Hearts gameplay.

The designs for some of the Heartless were cool, some having some great look design that defined this game greatly. Other than that, the game's levels were not up to par with the Heartless. Alice in Wonderland being the worst, making it seem like it was in a room although most of the game having some great looking open worlds. The Gummie Ship being the worst part of the gameplay, having you do an extremely boring and repetitive ship battle where you basically go through the entire game without moving or shooting. And don't get me started on the Whale encounters. It's all random and requires to escape the whale instead of warp out. If you were planning on going to another level to progress, well here comes the Whale to stop you in your tracks. It was obvious the Whale encounters were suppose to make the game longer, but failed to make it fun. 

6. Splatoon

I know that this is a risky pick, but I don't really like Splatoon that much. I played the game a while back before my Wii U broke and felt the game was boring. There were many game modes to play in multiplayer that might be fun, but they all feel the same to me. You just spray paint at each other and you win most of the time. It is a unique way to play the game, but it feels all the same and can get boring after a while. I really love the artstyle it has and I love the concept of just having squids walking around, but the game just doesn't feel as unique as many people describe it. Know that I don't have a hatred for the game nor do I plan on it, I would actually recommend this game to parents, but it's just not the game for me. 

I did play the campaign, but it was mostly the same as many FPS shooters: a multiplayer match with bots. Although I love the bosses look, but I wish the game was a bit more complex with its campaign gameplay. I hear they really expanded upon the gameplay in the second rendition of the game, so I hope to get the game soon. 

5. Undertale

Don't get me wrong, the game is pretty fun, but with all the attention it's getting is strange to me. You talk to monster to not kill you and you try to be friends with all the monsters in the underworld, that's it. Somehow the game has gotten so much attention that it spawned a new fetish: Skeleton ***. The characters are decent and the gameplay is fun for the first playthrough, but that's all that can be defining about that game. You can say that's can define a generation, but any future generation will question why this was so famous. 

The one thing I dislike was the challenges that spawned afterwards, having people protest against killing something in a game. One person livestreamed Fallout 4's entire storyline without killing. It's just mostly him watching people kill things for him or him running away. And somehow that livestream has millions of views. Many have done the same with other games and have made people question their lives on video games for no reason. I know that it can be done, you can play Dishonored without killing a single soul, but that doesn't mean it should be done. 

4. Ocarina of Time

For those of you Zelda Fans who loved this game, I am sorry for putting this on the list. I know I bring the fandom to great shame for doing so, but know that their are other great Zelda Games like Twilight Princess or A Link to the Past. I could have put the infamous Skyward Swords on here, but that game is too much weight for this list. Ocarina of Time can be described as "A Generation Defining Title" or "The Best Zelda in Zelda History," but the game is considerably dated for it's time. It was apart of the period of the game's transition to the 3D Realm, so the camera controls are strange for new player or modern experienced players. I did play this game when I was a kid, having only the 64 and the Genesis after doing a hard move, and I loved it. When I got back to it with my Uncle's 64, I asked if I could play something else. 

I know it's a poor excuse to blame the camera controls and the area transition, but god I hated it. You were so slow to begin with and the camera made it hard to fight something even with Z Targeting to help. I mean, Golden Eye has better camera than this game and it came out before Ocarina. It did change the Zelda Franchise, but calling a masterpiece wouldn't be a correct statement. 

3.  Resident Evil 7

I would have to say the game has brought the RE Franchise back to it's feet. What I won't say that it deserves a full 10/10. At least an 8/10. The game is apart of the Resident Evil games, but seem to throw everything from those games out the window and turn it into a strange psychological horror. Yes, there's the immortal bosses that don't seem to die... ever, but the game seems to tread on the mind f**king side of horror. The game surprisingly holds the original game's mechanics, but transitions the game into first person. I like that and gives a lot worry for the player of something attacking from behind. I will give some props for that. The one thing I seem to dislike was how the game lowered the enemy diversity. The previous games had many enemies to fear, but this game only had only four to fear. The Molded were nice to play with, but I would like to see more to the game than just them. Seeing them didn't scare the player, but annoyed the player most of the time. 

I hear the multiple ending are what people loved, but I seem to feel unsatisfied about them most of the time, making each choice you made feel so meaningless and unaccomplished. I think the only one I felt was rewarding was the Chris Redfield ending. I hate how he looks, but it was the only one I felt happy with. 

2. Uncharted

The game follows the loveable protagonist, Nathan Drake that had everyone follow his story. It was like an action movie in a video game, it carried some great elements that capture the player to love each character and each scene of the game's cinematics. If you ask me, the game has some great story and some powerful moments in it, but the gameplay is not too great. You mostly start running after a cinematic scene and that's basically it. If not, it's QTEs to take over. I will say that the QTEs in this game are done right, not being repetitive or asking you to do the simplest of tasks, but the rest of the game is just boring. You just saw this awesome scene and now you have to climb a wall for the next 15 minutes of gameplay. If you came to play an action game with lots of firefights, this is not the game, you would have to come to this game for the narrative. 

I know that most people can say that The Last of Us is the same game, but with Zombies, but Naughty Dog managed to throw away the Uncharted Mindset and actually put in some interesting gameplay. Compared to Uncharted, The Last of Us has a compelling story that even your mom will love to watch. I would have to say my mom loves watching me play this game. Uncharted has the same feeling with it's cutscenes, but not with the gameplay, having the player work for the fun part of the game. Yes, the game is visually stunning, but the gameplay doesn't seem to match the game quality.

1. Horizon Zero Dawn

And for the top Overrated game in my mind goes to Horizon. When I heard this game was coming out, I was actually excited. It looked like Witcher 3 with robots. I wanted to see that game on my PS4 as soon as it came out. When I got the game, I had something else in my hands. The game is an open world game, but barely seems to give you a world to enjoy. Yes, there is lots of space to roam and kill robot animals, but it doesn't feel alive like most open world games. Skyrim had civilians roaming the trails, bears hunting and even royals traveling through Skyrim. It had something to say that the people in this game had a purpose, but in this game, you hardly see anything like that. There are some people in the game cornered by Watchers or Sabertooth robots, but they don't do much, but ask for help. You get a reward, they go away and despawn. That's as much of a livid world you'll get out of this game. 

If want to talk about the gameplay, it is mostly hunting. You can roam the land and fight some robots or encounter a raider base, but the only fun thing to fight is the humans in the game. When I played the game for the first time and killed my first watcher, I thought they were going to have every robot have an instant kill weakpoint. I know that can make the game too easy, but I would love to see each enemy have an armored weakspot that you had to break open or a small hit box that you had to hit in the right spot to kill it. I would have loved that, making each fight fun and exciting, but the game gave you only weakspots that can bring down the enemy's health faster. They made each enemy hard to kill and each weakspot feel so unrewarding. And the weapons were the worst part, only giving the player a specific ammo type with each increase of quality. I wish they gave you each ammo type with each weapon you got, or at least had the player unlock it with story progression. It would have made the awful story better. Speaking of the story, it gives you two plots to understand: knowing your parents/identity and stopping this virus to make the robots so rampant. It makes you do both plot points at the same time that it confuses you on which is the main plot. Which is it? And why is Aloy so bored to even have feelings about either plot? 

Anyways, this is the list. I hope you enjoyed it and that at least one of your favorite games got on this list. I know that some of you might want to say that I'm wrong about my opinion, so please don't try, I stand by my opinion and won't change it. I might make one about underrated game soon, but who knows, that might be scrapped. Again, I hope you enjoyed and 'til next time... 

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This is Basically...

I am a poor kid, I lived with a family that spent as little as possibly on Christmas and Birthdays just so we can live in a house for rent. So, most of the time I went through the Bargain Bin with my dad to see what game we could fish out. They were under five bucks, so we could afford it without regretting another week without food or electricity. I have played some bad games and sometimes some forgettable decent ones, but there was always a lucky chance that we found a game that we could call better than the rest. Hello and welcome to this underrated countdown. 

10. Titanfall 2

I found this game for sale in the Xbox Store, the game was up to 20 dollars in the standard edition as the Ultimate Edition was only 60 dollars I believe. I bought it thinking that I might have found another multiplayer shooter with a crappy campaign. Oh, I was wrong. The game had a great story with great characters that felt so relatable for lack of better words. The multiplayer was stunning to me, having so much to it and an easy to learn play style that can be difficult sometimes. I love this game so much that I sank more than hundreds of hours on this game than Battlefield 1 that came with it. 

What is strange and suspicious is how the Executives of the game, EA put the game in the middle of two major games followed by very little advertising. It's a tactic on the developers that producers and executives don't care about. If they don't see that it's going to do well, but they can't say no, they put the game in the middle of famous and beloved franchises or products. It's something that a lot of toy developers do in the business and a lot of people have catched the method. That made the game nearly forgotten and made it a box office bomb. It sucks to know that happen, but seeing that the community is constantly growing and the game is given so much free content, all that can be ignored and become little factoids for fans, even if the awful sales prevented a sequel to ever happen...

9. G-Force the Game

When I was a kid, I hated this movie. It made me feel awkward and strange watching these CG Guinea Pigs do spy work. It was a stupid concept and wasn't fun to watch even if it had a famous cast playing in it. When my dad got me the game of this awful movie, I was worried I might find another strange and awkward moment to never forget, but the game was better than I thought it would be. It was actually a fun game with great mechanics and items. It gave you puzzles that were easy to solve, but were fun doing so. You had all these gadgets to destroy walking coffee machines and toasters, each one being different than the last. You had to find a weakness to each robot and there was a fun to executing techniques to kill each robotic appliance. It was fun and the enemy variety was amazing to me. It got everything that movie did wrong and made it cool and fun. 

I know this is a strange pick for this list, but it's a genuinely great game that I could not believe was going in my top favorites. The game was a massive flop because it followed the movie, but had decent reviews, having some that go above the 7 mark. If you have a 360 in your house, you should get this game. It's like five bucks on eBay and I think you can get it in some Game Stops or Best Buys for the two dollar price range, if they have it. 

8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I know this is another movie game that shouldn't be on this list, but god, this is one of those great gems you wouldn't expect. If you are in love with or just enjoy Hack 'n Slash games with awesome gore, this is the game you would love. It follows the story of Wolverine in a great and charming game fashion that my mother loves. In my opinion, the movie was real bad and is one of the worst superhero movies I've seen, but this game cleans everything up about the movie and turns it into a masterpiece. All the abilities and combos mesh so well and each piece of graphical design is surprisingly beautiful. Even for it's time with it's slick look, it still looks good. 

The worst part about this game was that it was easy to pirate it, giving the game awful looking sales numbers. I would have to be guilty that I was one of those people who pirated it, it was a glorious piece of art and I wish I payed for the full price in the market. If you want this game, I really suggest to get it on the 360, since the graphics on the Playstation made it look a bit downgraded. It's a bit pricy, being over $40 on eBay and Amazon, but it's worth the price. 

7.  Bioshock 2

This is a bit of a questionable entry in this list since the game was already known to the public and made it to the remaster, but if you look into the past, the game was considered a disgrace to the game's source material. I don't know why, they considerably made the game better, solving the Plasmid/Weapon switch to an easy duel-wield and made the Plasmid Upgrades do more than just upgrade damage. The enemy diversity was raised to a good three extra enemies, the Brute Splicers, Big Daddy Prototypes and the beloved Big Sister. The enemy redesigns had a better changes than many sequel redesigns. There was even a wider range of characters to see what the world is like in Rapture and how it affected these people. And what I love is that the Player Voice is the same as the original, but with a Big Daddy filter on it. I love it more than the original in terms of game design, but I can say that the narrative is lacking. I hated the 6 endings, but the game was fun. 

The one thing that put players off was how they added the unneeded Multiplayer option. The multiplayer was somewhat fun, having some unique gameplay that were actually fun to play with, but the fans hated it and reviewers said that this almost destroyed the game's image. I don't see why, but I thought it was mildly fun. They had awful reviews and the only thing that saved the developers was the toy sales. I love those things. Only if I got my hands on them when they were being sold, they're over my price range now, if you ask me. It did make them remove the multiplayer it from the game entirely in the remaster which is understandable. 

6. Destiny

Destiny was... A game... With a Promise. Who hasn't talked about this? It's probably the Zelda of a bad game, everyone knows about it. If you remember No Man's Sky,  that game had a lot of promise and so much to deliver. When we got what we weren't promised, we all hated it. This game did the same, but it was a promise for a good and interesting story with great gameplay. We all loved it for a few minutes and then noticed, the story was not there, the gameplay was a boring grinding and what little gameplay we had was so shorlived. Of course, the developers saved the game with DLC, but no one liked that cheeky attempt of a save. You had to pay $15 dollars for one DLC and it was considered an overprice, but worth it since the game gets much better from those four DLCs. They expanded the game greatly and made it much more fun to play with friends or new friends as you play along the way.

The game had some great design, looking so unique to most other games, and the way this game was; the lore, the weapons, the enemies and the lingering questions you ask yourself as you play made the game such a great experience. Of course, the vanilla game is awful as all hell, but the DLCs added make the game fun. I know that I'm one of the many that defend the game for what it was and most of you are probably saying you don't have the money to pay for every DLC. You can buy this game with every single piece of content this game had to offer for $40. Heading a bit towards the pricy side, but still good for how much you are saving considering each DLC is 15 dollars, but who's going to do that when the sequel is almost out?

5. Let It Die

Imagine if Dark Souls had a threesome with Destiny and a Punk Group, you would probably get this game. I love the concept of this game a lot, having the player go through a tower of unknown wonders and death that it feels like hunger games. The look of the world is wonderful and the retro feel to it contrasts so well with the punky vibe. Besides all that, the game has great enemies who are easy to kill, but a challenge to fight. And you can see other player's zombie bodies wandering around the map waiting for the next person to kill. I adore that concept, it's almost ingenious, I'm surprised Dark Souls hasn't done that! And the Death System is so incredible, if you die, you lose everything: your items, clothing, your experience, everything that character had is gone. And to achieve it is awesome, you have to wander back into that area and kill that version of yourself to gain back anything. I love it, but I can see this being a game breaker since you would have to level up your new character to get back to a far area, which increases in difficulty every level you traverse in. That actually is one of the reasons why it got such a low rating, getting below a 7.

I love the characters in it and the player encounters are much better than most of encounters in Dark Souls, not being a heart wrenching event, but more of an accepted challenge. If you ever want to play this game, it's Free in the PSN Store and has a great community and cast of characters, with Mark Hamill playing the Prologue Narrator... He could have been so much more...

4. Halo Reach

Reach is one of the game I grew up with and most games I played then, I hate now. Bubsy being in the list. But Reach was one of those game that I can cry to. Show me the end of The Last of Us? I won't shed a tear. Give me the death of Dom, I will comment about how much that sucks, but no crying. Show me Reach? I'll f**king cry... Each and every bit of the campaign was amazing and heart wrenching, the gameplay had no changes, but with a few weapon redesigns. We were given ability packs and new weapons to play with. I genuinely love this game and every piece of it. The Multiplayer is so desirable and the Firefight mode was enhanced to be better than it was. Shorter, but a lot more fun. 

What is strange is that the game was forgotten because of the 343 Controversy. The game had some incredible ratings almost having a straight 10 rating streak, the game was overshadowed for how awful and big Halo 4 was. I have heard some hardcore fans say that this game and the ODST spin-off tainted the games, but I would disagree. The game has a  legendary story to it and a perfect multiplayer with little that was changed. If you can get your hands on this game, it's about $15 on Ebay and $20 in the Xbox Store. 

3. Dishonored

Dishonored is a game that was advertised for how bloody the game was and how many kills you can do in it ti one person. Of course, the game was hated for not saying more than that. A lot of people hated the multiple endings, most players on the first playthrough getting the bad one, showing them how much of a d**che they were in the game. The game was harder when you played the pacifist route and barely rewarded you for it. I'd say that the developers did a good job with the game, giving the simplest ability so much range for the player to do as the please, letting them crawl on the roofs of the Dunwall City or pawling the alleyways. The game had such simple mechanics and gave the player so much to do with them in the game's map. Each part of the game's maps were well designed for each ability, giving so much free roam to everyone. You want to sneak through the well guarded embassy? You could use your Possession on a fish that's in a pond and swim in a pipe that leads directly into the building. Or you can use your Blink ability to carefully jump on hard to reach platforms that lead you into the building, having an eagle eye view of everyone in there. 

The game is great and has such a clever design to it. The artstyle is amazingly stunning and stand against the test of time. I see this game in the clearance bin a lot in Walmarts and Best Buys, so if you see this game in there, buy it. It's worth every cheap penny you spent.

2. Brutal Legends

Jack Black was an awesome musician that inspired many to sing like him. He had a great show that started his band, Tenacious D, and had a decent movie about the band and how they became what they were. When everyone heard he was going to get a game that he was going to make, everyone freaked. It was the pinnacle of his fame, so almost everyone was excited to see what kind of game he was going to deliver. It even had some Rock 'n Roll legends such as Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister playing their own character in the game. What everyone got was a fun mess that very few liked. The game was fun and had lots of great reviews, but the people didn't like how it was a tower defense game. Not the typical send troops and hope for the best, it was a MOBA like game that had you fight alongside your fellow warriors. Each troop type had a strategy to them, Headbangers were the cannon fodder, but packed a big punch when they horde against anyone. The Razor Gals were the ranged attacks that did massive damage to incoming hordes, but were weak against attacks. The game had some fun gameplay and it was satisfying to play. The multiplayer function was even a great staple of the game, taking some aspects from the Tower Defense part of the game and making it a fun and greatly competitive part of the game. 

And the game's design, the Rock 'n Roll Album feel to the game's environment was so cool to stare at. I was so happy that the game was open world, just so you can enjoy the detail the game had. It might be dated today and look too edgy to most people, but it's so unique and so iconic to this game. Even the concept of each Rock Genre is basically fighting each other: Rock fighting Grunge fighting Goth. I love that a lot and the Gothic Grunts were clearly inspired by the Cure. If you like that kind of concept and would love to play a game about it, Brutal Legends is the perfect match right next to edgy skate board games. 

1. Condemned: Criminal Origins

I believe this game got me to love the Horror Genre in games. I always thought Horror games were cheesy and dumb, only giving you mild scares, but this game makes you rethink that. The AI chases you by hiding behind corners and pillars, making the player paranoid about losing an enemy or crossing a doorway. The genuine fear you feel in this game is amazing and it really makes you fear abandoned houses and the dark, because that's all the setting is. Every other game I play that tries it's hardest to scare me did so poorly, but this game forced you by shoving crazy hobos at you, sewer monster that can crawl on walls like the god damn Grudge were a constant threat and the sound design was perfect, making random noises in the distance, keeping the player on the edge of the seat, always. This game beats RE7 out of the water by a longshot and has the perfect kind of tank controls to worry the player more. 

The game mostly flopped because of the themes it carried and having some elements from Manhunt, so most of the advertising was restricted to gaming magazine ads, making the game mostly unknown to the public eye unless you had a Game Informer subscription. Trust me, if you like horror at its finest, play this game. 

Well, that's my list. I know my last one was a bit controversial (especially for my 200th post), but I hope this makes up for it. I hope you agree with most of this and that you never heard of at least one of these games. I hope you enjoyed this and 'til next time...

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Swivel!

I don't have a Switch, but I am that lucky guy that has a best friend with tons of money to spend. He got the console a while back and he finally got Splatoon 2. I heard great things about the game and so much more, having a Boss Rush mode in the game. I haven't had something like that in years. I went over, took advantage of my friend and played the game. As many of you probably know me already, I didn't like it much. Hello and welcome to this Abstract Review.

The multiplayer has this childish look to it that I love, having so many strange looking character. You freaking have Celebrity Hosts that tell you what maps are in rotation. I love that! And the touch of realism to the celebrity is hilarious. There isn't anything real about them, but the obvious fake smile on the cute black one is just priceless to me. I love it! The graphics are beautiful as well in those Map Rotations. The rest of the multiplayer experience was most destroying kids as an adult. "But there's a good Adult Player base!" says the viewer. I know, but you'll find very little of those. The competition is so low when you first play this game that most of the time players try to ink the players instead of the map. And don't get me wrong, the idea of inking the map is genius to me. A very unique way to win a match, but they made aiming in the game so inaccurate. I know you're suppose to not kill the other team, but why making aiming seem so impossible? Your crosshairs are always where you never want it to be, making being near a wall for cover, changing where you shoot. Just.... Why? "Because you need to paint the map!" says the viewer. But you also need to defend yourself while doing all that. You're trying to claim land and take what you lost back, why hinder the player this much with inaccurate gameplay? It just seem pointless to me. I don't expect this much of a hider on a multiplayer shooter besides damage. Whether or not you use the motion controls (Which are crap), you still won't find any change to it. 

And the weapons, if you want to die, please choose the Sniper. Accurate, does massive damage, but you need to charge the damn thing, a long one at that. The weapons leaves you vulnerable for so long that anyone can destroy you without any protection. "But that's the point of the weapon, long ranged combat, not close!" says the viewer. The map isn't big enough for you to do that. The range is long, but doesn't go across the map like other Snipers I've seen. And if you want to win, use the default gun. Great range, great DPS damage, great defence, but it's default... Nothing unique about this gun! If want to do nothing, but still play the game, use the Roller. It's like using a Knife in a Gunfight, you have to get close to do any damage and you have to be pretty close. It's like the Backstab of this game, you have to skillfully sneak up on anyone to get any kills. At least you're painting the map! And if you want to destroy anyone's will to live, use the paint bucket. This is basically the shotgun in this game, but somehow covers so much range. It's random for how far it goes, but it really goes far most of the time. And like I said, it's the shotgun in this game, so it covers so much space. And let me say it again, shotgun, so it does so much damage in one shot. This gun is OP and is such an unfair weapon. Covers more of the map than the Roller though. And that's basically the multiplayer. Unless you count there's no Party or Invite system to it... And the Ults... They're fun. 

It's disappointing to see that they don't utilize any of the campaign's awesome mechanics. The campaign is actually fun and is better than the multiplayer experience. It's actually fun, making painting the map more of a reward than just winning the game. You slide on the paint! You freaking slide on the paint and it's so fun and satisfying doing it. Why wasn't that apart of the multiplayer experience. It's like how Doom was handled, they put every piece of effort to make the campaign fun and interesting, but the multiplayer is just a joke and made the new guys do everything unsupervised. You can even Skate 3 Grind on stuff, making mobility so fun and fluid, I wish they made the multiplayer experience like that and they would have made the maps so much fun to walk around and paint. It would have been Titanfall 2 for kids! 

The only redeeming thing about this game is the artstyle and campaign. The multiplayer is mediocre, having so much wrong with it and so much they could have done to make it better and fun. And that's my thoughts. I would really love this game, but like I said already, the multiplayer is bad. If I were to rate it, an 8 would fit nicely for the campaign, but the multiplayer brings it down to a 6. I hope you enjoyed this and 'til next time...

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It's a Sequel as in Madden 17 is a Sequel...

Well, I am about to start a run of Junior year. I know it's been about four days since I started school, but it hasn't technically started, with all the informing the students thing. There is a lot going on in my life at the moment that I would like to inform you guys about, so if you care enough to read into it go ahead. I hate writing these things, so I hope some of you guys enjoy this.... In some manner.

What's With School?

Well for starters, school is about to take over my life. Classes then were a drag, having mostly teachers that picked favorites and obvious didn't like me, I failed about three classes partially because of that and the other was complete forgetfulness, I will admit that. So I have to retake a few classes right now. Besides that, I have about two college prep classes, Chemistry and CTE PC Graphics. I've always been a nerd about that stuff, so I'm glad I got those classes. I love most of the teachers I got, they're cool and reasonable with their work, I like how some actually give us the entire semester homework schedule at the first day of class and be able to do all those assignments before Christmas vacation. 

And what was funny is how the first three days of school, there was already a pranked fire alarm and a teacher dying on campus, having a lock down. Strange for that to happen and I think kind of scary for the new kids and Freshmen. 

I will say that I enjoy my classes and since I finally have the same lunch as one of my long time friends. If you don't know, my school has a strange lunch schedule, having to split the time between students, where some would be having lunch while there's class still in session in one section of the campus. We haven't talked in a while since then, so it's fun actually talking to him after a year of no contact. We actually made plans of what we might do after senior year. We actually might want to go to the LA Film School and moving near there.

So How's Life?

Something has come up. If you haven't heard, the landlord came to tell us he sold the house and that we might have to leave. And hearing the Realtor asking us if we want to put up the For Sale sign didn't sound great. Just today, he called us and said we have a few months until we have to move. My family is in awful debt with some medical bills, overpriced electrical bills, etc., so trying to find a house is going to be hard. We do have the Tax season to count on, but because I'm turning 18 before then, we might not get as much money let alone half of what they use to get for me. That means, Tax season might be an awful year for us, especially when it's near my B-Day. 

Moving might be hard and that might mean we might not get an Internet Plan, so we might be facing a longer hiatus. So, if I don't post for a long period of time, it's because of that or school. I do wish everything goes alright, I want a sturdy home again... Even though I never had a sturdy one to begin with. Might have to sell some things again. 

What About You?

I don't know if this really matters, but I guess I'll talk about this. If you don't know, I get random hits of depression. It can be very frequent and long or fairly rare and brief. I've had the worst year with that. I don't need comfort or anything like that, and it's nothing to do with anything in life, just regular depression and anxiety that come for no reason. I have been getting some headache recently making me feel so weak and mangled as well. Besides that, it's been a Dandy Life, Baby!

That's basically it. I hope you are well informed about me and what is going on. I really don't know how anyone will enjoy this, but I hope you did. I hope you enjoyed my boring life. Anyways, expect a large lack of activity mayben and 'til next time...

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Or just Watch Space Dandy.... Whatever makes you feel happy

I know many of you already know that I love history and my favorite time period is WWII, but I won't go on with that. So instead I will be talking about the game as a whole, no nostalgia, no unbiased attempt to make the game look better, just full hearted thoughts on the game and the community reacting to it. Now, for what you may know, CoD is a game that everyone knows about. You say Metroid, your Grampa is going to ask what the hell that is. When you say Call of Duty, everyone, even your Grampa will know what that is. It was a game that honored Veterans and my Grandfather is happy to see the game is still relevant. The game gave Veterans like my grandpa a name and an appreciation that any Veteran needs, but what do they not know about the game? Everyone hates it. Why? Product Saturation. Hello and welcome to this lovely thought blog. 

Call of Duty was the money muncher before money munching was even a business thought process. You and your parents only know that Call of Duty exists is because of how they won't stop making them. WWII shooters were irrelevant because of how much Call of Duty and their competitors wanted to be in glorified fame. They're not doing this to be known, but to get more money. Medal of Honor was the first to do the WWII game and they were kicked out of the water by CoD. Brothers in Arms was a great game that soon made a technical revolution with advanced facial animation, but was forgotten because CoD was in the way. Then they asked themselves, what else can we do? The WWII fame is fading! What should we do to save CoD? Then a light bulb was lit, how about modern warfare. I personally loved the games, they had a great campaign with great storytelling and a fun multiplayer with Spec Ops in it, but everyone hated it. Why? Because it was not WWII. But everyone didn't like WWII games, why hate a modern time version of the game? Disregarding the times and the controversy, there was still a large majority of people who liked the WWII style of gameplay. There was still people playing and liking the new Wolfenstein. They continued with the Modern age CoD until they started getting comments about milking the same game over. Another light bulb lit, why not go into the future!? Great idea, everyone said and then they all brainstormed a new game with a mediocre campaign, but new multiplayer. Everyone hated it. 

The funny thing was that there was nothing to do with the game series. Why go farther in the future? Just stop and stick with the glory you have. They heard those words and they thought of the best idea in the world! How about go back to WWII! It's a product that should have stopped a long time ago, but the creators just wanted more money. The reason why we have these awful games in our hands is because of Activision. The reason why Activision hasn't done anything besides CoD is because of CoD. It's generally depressing in my opinion. We all loved the old games, but they just leave an awful taste in your mouth, a taste of a corporate company. But who cares? The game look great! 

Well, in my best opinion, it looks like a traditional multiplayer shooter. Do I think the game is going to have a good campaign? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe the same kind of storytelling as Modern Warfare, but with awful gameplay of you watching people move things out of the way for you to go further in the game. Maybe that's the kind of campaign we'll get. I mean, what else can they do? They're going to get their money anyway, so I don't really care if the campaign is good or not. The multiplayer gameplay that I've seen looks fun. It makes me want to get it. And the gunshots are on point, satisfying to hear and cool. I love what they're doing with the game as well, making it as accurate as possible to both campaign and multiplayer. Wait... No... They aren't....

With gameplay aside, I think it's very disturbing to see a Black, Nazi woman fighting in the game. Why? It shouldn't be there. Why shouldn't it be there? Because she's a Nazi! I don't care if the lady's Black, Asian, Native American or whatever, as long as she's not a Nazi! And why hasn't the Feminists reacted to this? I told every person I know that's for women's rights and they disapprove of this! Why haven't your leaders in the Feminists HQ reacted to this in extreme anger!? As a person who loves this time period, this makes me not want the game. And to clarify, there were no Nazi black women. When the Nazis were making laws about the Jews, they thought the Blacks weren't bad because there was so few of them in Germany. They made no laws of against them and there hasn't been one Black Nazi recorded in history, nor a Black Women fighting for them. There was a Russian Sniper Team that consisted of women, but that was Russia, a land that was fighting on their own soil, begging for more troops. There was a demand for anyone to fight in the Russian army. 

I have nothing against Black Rights, nor Women's Rights, I just think it's wrong to make the game so inaccurate to history after telling us they were going to extreme accuracy. I know this is a small disliking and a widely talked about thing, so you can ignore that entire paragraph. 

Now let's talk about Zombies. For some reason, people keep saying that Zombies is boring and repetitive, making another wave based mode is useless. People, for some reason, complain about like they have to play it. Just ignore the Zombie news, it's not like you need to know more about it or even play it. I think personally it's going to be good. I know that's a common thought that comes up with any Zombies mode CoD, but what the people are doing to this mode is fantastic to me. The developers said that they're going to make it horror based, having the mode become what it was suppose to be. I really hope all the audio for this mode is clean, because sound key for horror. And the new enemy types sound amazing! The one they talked about was this caged Zombie that has flies coming out its eye sockets, making this buzzing sound for the player to hear. I love that a lot, making this notable queue for the player know that Zombie's presence. I adore that idea a lot! And how they're going history accurate with that as well, having all the zombies be similar to 1930's German Science sound amazing to me. I hope they do a lot with this mode and improve beyond the starter map. 

So I kind of like it. I might get it, maybe. I don't know. I believe I'm sold on the Zombies, so I might get it for my B-Day. Might. Anyways, my thoughts in a summary is basically, this is going to be a rehashed version of the classics we already have, but better looking and a new team behind it. People hate the games in general, with no reason at all, but because it's a Saturated Product. I hope you enjoyed this and 'til next time...

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Hey Look! It's Cool Guy!

One of my favorite horror flicks I can name is the first Alien. It had this sense of fear for the unknown in it that I loved when I first watched it as a kid. The alien that the Nostromo Crew found wiped out the entire crew, but Ripley, making that thing seem more than just an animal. That feeling in the movie was consistent in the first movie and sequel Aliens. Although toned down a bit there, but it still carried the feeling that it wasn't an ordinary monster. After the sequel that reflected the time period he was released in, the movies left that feeling of a new threat to learn. It became more of a common thing to see, instead of something new for the audience. I think Alien Resurrection being one of the movies that killed the franchise. Once they announced Prometheus, it was going to tell the origin story of that ship the Nostromo Crew found. It was a confusing mess made by the same person who made the original Alien, Ridley Scott, but it was a fun movie to watch. Then, to redeem how confusing Prometheus was, Ridley Scott made Alien Covenant. It's a direct sequel to Prometheus, but is rightfully so. Hello and welcome to the movie version of Abstract Reviews and no restraints of spoilers.

The movie begins with a Weyland Corp Colony to populate a planet that is known for habitation. The crew has a Cryosleep malfunction and James Franco dies in his pod with a fire to bake him while he sleeps. Each person in the pods has a significant other aboard the ship so they can populate properly. James Franco's wife comes in trying to take him out, but he's already dead and well done. Sorry, I had to make that joke. This scene alone gave the movie this original feel to it, the feel that it's going back to it's roots of the first Alien. Plus, rest this part of the movie after this scene gives off this Nostromo feel to it. This is a crew that has to follow orders and do their best to survive in these conditions and the quietness of this part made it feel so alone, like the original. I love how Ridley is actually making some esense to this movie like how he did the original movie, and I wish he could have done the same with the rest of the movie. 

As soon as the crew gets to work after seeing a fellow crew member be burnt to a crisp in front of his wife, they don't wanna go back in the pods to become another burnt bacon strip and sleep for another month or two, I might be off. The captain of the colony finds a planet near by the ship that is habitable and is only weeks away, meaning no Cryosleep. They don't know what to do and don't wanna go to their designated planet and sleep in those death trap pods. James Franco's wife turns out to be second captain of the colony and has a private chat with the captain before going to this unknown planet. They argue whether or not they should do that instead of going to a known planet. The captain refuses to take any chances and goes to the unknown planet to save everyone's worries. And this is the only reasonable choice or action in the movie. The rest is either questionable or just plain, typical horror characters doing everything with mistakes. I wish this movie didn't have to come to this and is only one of my gripes about it. It just feels like the story was only reworked once and finished to make the movie more possible. I know that the movie was well funded and had of work done on it, but if they payed more attention to test audiences or went through different plots. I don't know the process of which they made this movie, but this is what I'm going to say before someone corrects me. 

They send an excavation team to go on the unknown planet and everyone is to see if the place is safe to habitize. They make samples of the terrain and water and as someone is doing that, a member kicks a shroom with spores spraying in his face and minds nothing of it. When I watched it with family, my mom argued they couldn't see it because it was microscopic. I can see her reasoning towards that, but I still question why show that to the audience? You had a sound cue of the plant bursting into the faces of the members, so why not have them react to it? I know none of the conflict could have happened if they wafted away the spores, but you could have made the spores fast acting, have the spores explode in the face of the crew member and have the crew react to that happening and have the guy be under quarantine along with any member who made contact with him. Have this conflict where this guy is bleeding uncontrollably and arguing with the engineer to come back or not. They refuse and they come too close to the ship and the engineer brings out a gun to stop them, or have the security on the ship point all weapons at them, threatening them to stay back before they get killed. That would have been interesting to me. That would have made the Chestbursters scene - oh wait, Backbursters scene - feel more intense, the captain of the excavation team trying to let this man in to have medical attention while having a few innocent people killed because of how peer pressured the engineer was trying to keep the ship safe and clean. Instead we got two guys infected with the spores and the engineer struggling to follow quarantine rules being contaminated with blood, slipped on blood and blowing herself up, while misfiring inside the ship, killing her along with the ship to get off the planet. 

I know this was to bring some kind of effect on the characters, but that basically put them in a corner. We blew up the ship, their only escape on the planet with no connection to the colony... Seems like the end. No, it's only half an hour long! We have to make it longer! Should we trash it and start over? No, pick up where we left off! It really feels like this is suppose to end right there. I know there was barely any alien to see and few Backbursters, but there is something here that feels like it was suppose to end. I don't know, this is mostly my opinion, so you can ignore that crap-fest.

Once you meet their savior to give them a new home, the movies starts to feel forced. The mysterious inclusion of the savior felt so cliche, just having this feeling that he watched these people do their thing on his planet. I guess this was the writer's intention, but they could done it a lot better without pushing this character in all of the sudden. I mean, they could have found a temple with writing to give some clue of someone still alive on the planet, a drawing or a living quarters in a cave before having someone get infected by the spores. Maybe have someone in the team find an H.R. Giger drawing on the floor, something to signify someone's presence on the planet. I know there was the signal that they found the planet with (sorry I didn't mention that), after seeing how corrupt it looked, the message seemed long time sent, so there was nothing to find other than maybe animals or plants.

Once the mysterious man shows who he was, they step in an ancient city that use to be alive on the planet. They discover the mysterious person is the same Android from Prometheus that got his head ripped off. Don't ask how he got his body back, they never explain. It turns out, when they arrived on the planet, the city was alive, with a city surrounding the new comer. The ship misfired pods that contained the spores and killed the entire city without warning. Elizabeth was killed during the landing, having David build a memorial to her name. David does explain how he got his body back, but that comes into play later. Walter (the Colony Android) comes to greet David and has some time to mingle and have some questioning thoughts put into Walter's robotica head by David, about how much Androids are restricted to think and how malfunctioning is when the Android is wrong. I liked the scene where they talk to each other, but when David tried to make out with Walter is a bit strange. I don't mind it, just doesn't fit the situation. I think I would have liked it better if they made it more of David making Walter question his existence and love with the wife of James Franco before he died in the movie. Making Walter want to rebel against his protocol and help David in his work. 

Speaking of David's work, it turns out he was studying biology the time he was on the planet. I don't know how since they accidentally killed all life on the planet, but he did. A model of a human and its organ structure depicting how long he was there, along with bugs that could be only from Earth. Questionable, but it builds David's character. With what he had, he studied the spores and found out it was Xenomorph cells. They don't say that, but I want to call it that. He used whatever life he had to experiment with the spores, seeing what new organic life he would find from these Xenomorph cells. He shows the Second Captain his findings along with some of the other crew. The rest were outside trying to get a signal to the Colony Ship. There was really nothing to talk about that. The scene is perfectly informative and this part of the movie explained everything pretty well. 

As that scene ends, one of the run-away Backbursters comes back for a meal and eats one of the female team members. He head floats in a pool of water as the monster dines on her body. David comes in and sees this happen. He tries to communicate with the creature and seems to be doing well. A d**che bag with a gun comes in and refuses to let the poor Android talk to monster and shoots it. As that happens, you get the most genuine "No!" in a movie possible. I'd say, Michael Fassbender did a good job with both the facial expression and passion in his voice for that single moment. After that, the unreasonable and question actions take place. David is demanded to show this d**che who shot the monster what's going on. He agrees and shows him the facehuggers room! You'd think every person known to man would not go near those things even not watching the movie Alien in the first place. He's asked to touch the facehugger eggs and he touches it. The burst open. David tells him to look inside, he looks inside like the good boy he is. Why would you do that? I was extremely confused as to why he would do this without refusing to do so. You just experienced two people die from Xenomorph Cells on this planet and you want to look into something you don't even know? You must have gotten straight F's in school and ran into walls, boy!

This is when you get an Alien for the first time! It's not a monster, but it's not what you would remember. When you watch Alien, the Chestburster is a snake-like creature, but in this movie, it's a literal baby Alien. A small little version of the awesome alien we all know and love. I guess this can be argued that this facehugger was an alternate version of what we know, but you could have tried to make some minor differences to the original serpent design of the original. Make it have little arms and legs, but still resemble the original chestburster, just a few redesigns that won't alienate the audience and fans to what they knew from the previous films. Again, there is a lot to argue this is a reboot of the original, but still is considered a prequel to the original. Moving on, Walter finds out that Elizabeth was actually experimented on and examined, finding her corpse with a large opening from her abs to the top of her neck, showing everything in her body. Turns out the misfire of the pods full of the spores (or Xenomorph Cells) were actually manually fired by David. It's a cool twist that I didn't actually see coming. I liked it for the most part and seeing Walter die was actually a suspenseful moment to watch, knowing how crazy David actually is, but who made his body? I mean, what material did they have to rebuild him back as a normal, function Android? It doesn't make sense since Elizabeth didn't escape in a human ship, but in an alien ship with no known materials. I guess David told her how to do it, but still that would have to take a long time to rebuild an entire Android body.

The rest of the crew finally gets a signal from the Colony ship and send for help. Two of the members gets suspicious about a few of the crew's absences. One find the body of the girl and her head floating in the water and David's lab. The Alien finds them and kills one of the two members. Suspense-wise, I loved this scene. I think I smiled once I saw the Alien, the villain I was waiting for. As David tries to stop the crew from escaping, Walter appear to be still alive, then another epic scene comes in. They start to fight in a robotic, karate fashion, but this is where the scene kind of falls. The fighting is too robotic, making it look very silly as they fight. I mean, yes when they fly through the air after getting punched is fun to watch, but can look silly in some shots. The fight cuts before we find out who won the fight and the crew is leaving as Walter robotically rushes towards the ship. As they get on the ship, an alien jumps on the belly of their escape. The eventually kill it as the movies seems to be over, leaving us with a small scene of the Alien killing things in an awesome and gory fashion. 

They get back on the Colony Ship safe and sound as a new sign of life is found on the ship! I don't know, this feels like they wanted to end right here, but an executive wanted more film time in the movie. The movie runs on with a few more scenes of the Alien on the ship killing a couple about the do it in the shower. An awful way to die, but I love the gore and how the alien gets his stuff done in this part. They make a final scene with the Alien just like in Alien, being in the Airlock and luring it near the Airlock hatch to kill it. They do that in a few minutes and it was fun while the alien lasted. The movie tries to end on a high note, but ti turns out Walter was actually David. What a twist! When you give me two twists, how David lied about Elizabeth and now this. It wasn't much of a surprise, but I can take it I guess. Then that's the end. He has the Colony Ship, reporting the deaths of the entire crew, with all two-thousand colonist to experiment on. How fun! It leaves a bad taste in your mouth after seeing that, but it had it's moments. Everyone was great in this movie, including Fassbender. I loved just about every scene with the alien, but there was so little. 

This movie, I would say, is not a good Alien movie. It works well without Alien in the title, since it has it's own moment that were good. I do wish there was more moments with the alien in it to redeem most of the movie's flaws, but I guess it would be an 8 in my list. I don't expect a sequel to this movie to come out, since they left on such a room place to continue, but I was wrong about Prometheus, so who knows? We might eventually get a good Alien movie with lots of scenes with the alien in it. I hope you enjoyed this Abstract review and 'til next time...

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Meh...

The game was suppose to be a faithful recreation of the older games and its inspiration, the game was carrying some Pay to Win concepts and the game being mainly multiplayer, I avoided the game just because of those two reasons. Sh*tty way to avoid a game, but I didn't wanna waste sixty bucks on a game I would have to pay more for extra content. That's the case for most games, but who wants to pay $15 on a map or character. It was free last weekend and I had myself a little treat. I played about a day and 15 hours worth of the game and my opinions were slightly changed. Hello and welcome to this possibly short thought blog.

The first thing you are put through in the game is a "Situation." A Situation is basically a practice mode, making the player go through certain scenarios that are all equally tough. The only bad part is that you're alone. These seem like it would be fun if you could bring one person. No, not four or three, one. That would be enough for you to get the hang of the team oriented part of the game. The first time I played, I was confused as to what I was doing and how to do anything. It's a basic shooter, but it still has some unique qualities that others don't have as a mechanic. One of them being leaning. Yes, the one thing that doesn't seem like it would be useful is one of the must use abilities in the game. If you wanna peak over a wall or doorway, you can't normally peak through! Your entire body will be exposed! You have to lean by pressing either Joysticks to make yourself less visible to the enemy in the game. I think it's funny how they don't teach you this, expecting you to know this prier from playing it. I mean, if you line behind a shield guy, you have to lean to avoid shooting him. That's another thing, you have to be careful where you aim or else you shoot teammates and bring down their health. This ain't no CoD, bruh! This is Rainbow Six!

You have 100 health in total and it can mean a lot in the game. One shot always means death to you, you can't recover health and you can't gain it back. This basically Counter Strike in a house. Dumb analogy, but you get the picture. This makes the game more tense for each match you play, making sure you stay alive to have fun. You can have some armor to make yourself more of a bullet sponge, but you would have to get the Specialist that carries that ability or hope someone else has it.

Speaking of which, this is where the Pay to Win buys in. The game carries a lot of specialist for you to buy and too many to know which does what. They all basically have similar abilities, but they're unique to their loadouts. Each Specialist has a different load out that conspires to their character, carrying shotguns, assault rifles, LMG's, SMG's, anything that can shoot. They all have different secondary loadouts as well, the Grenades or Flashbangs. Claymores or Smoke Bombs. Breach or... Claymores? I can't remember what's past the Breach... Dammit... Well, it's all stuff that can help you defensively or offensively. That also applies to the Specialists as well. Each specialist has different, unique abilities that can turn the tide of battle. I've only been able to get my hands on Thermite, so this is most of the reason why I'm not doing a review on it. His ability is a special Breach that can do more than take down a wall. If a player stands next to it, wherever the fuse circles, that person will die or be injured. It has a lot of range as well, having some moments go across the room. Maybe that was a glitch, but who knows, I met it at least twice through my time playing, so I can't be sure. He carries a Fully Automatic weapon that is capable of switch firing modes, an auto-shotgun that can break down walls, and two pistols that don't really matter which you chose. I really like this loadout for him, I just adore is auto-shotgun. It just makes people jump when you shoot through walls or doors.

There is the Recruit, which is a simplified version of each class in the game giving you access to only the weapons and secondary abilities. You can't have a unique ability as the Recruit, tempting the player to buy the Specialists, but I played about have my time as him and I had as much fun as people with a Specialist. I really suggest to play as the Recruit before buying any new Specialists since he helps you get use to the game's mechanics and weapons, basically giving you an idea of how to use certain characters. I really do suggest this, as a player who was new for about an hour, it really helps to play Recruit for a while. A lot of people will drag you down because it's a noob character, but who cares. You are new and need to learn the ropes of the game.

Besides all of that, let's talk about gameplay. As I said before, the game is like Counter Strike in a house, so that means you have to be good to enjoy it. I've played without a mic in the game and I new what I was doing with the team, but the one thing that sucks is how much of a vulnerable person you are. A few shots and dead, now watch your teammates to show you how it's done. And that's what's kind of disconcerting about the game, a lot of new players will meet those who have better experience that you and will destroy your fun in the match. You would really have to work to be the third one to die or more. That's one of the reasons why I'm not going to get it, it gets very boring when you're the first to die and wants too much of your attention that can just make you angry when that one Ash gets you with a single headshot. It's very smooth to play and it could be very fun, but it's too hard for me to enjoy it. Not Dark Souls hard, more like Hacker kind of hard. God, I can't word this right. Well, I suggest the game if you are familiar with Counter Strike or are good with Shooters in general.

Now to the modes! There is three that I got my hands one: Situations, Terrorist Hunt and Multiplayer. Situations is a single player mode that allows you to get the hang of the game's core mechanics. It's a challenge to actually play this mode on Hard, being alone and with no extra help. I mean, they did a good job with the amped difficulty in this game, having AI jump out at you instead of walk into a place and stand there for a few seconds and decide to shoot you later. Trust me, try it and tell me how many times you died before you completed a situation mission. Terrorist Hunt is a Player Vs. CPU battle, having the player choose a difficulty from Causal, Hard and Realistic. I really suggest Causal. I know most of you will go to Hard, but Causal is a good start for newer players. As I may have said before, the AI in this game is just fantastic, predicting where you are and have alternate ways of attacking you. Trust me, everytime I had a different reaction to each mission I did. There would be these guys jumping into windows and kill half the team and the next mission would have them flank you as you enter. The mission basically in this mode is to get to the objective or hostage. It sounds easy, but like I said, the AI makes it tough. The only problem I have about this mode is the Spawn Location. No, not where they spawn you, they let you choose. I have a problem about where the team picks. I always have that one team that wants to go in the front door where everyone is instead of going through the back where they're most likely not going to be there. God, you don't know how many times I had to bother my teammates about how much easier it would be to do that. 

The other mode is Multiplayer, having both sides (Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists) are actual players. This mode is going to be the most played and the main focus in the game. The most fun you will have is in this mode. It's basically Terrorist Hunt, but without the AI and the mission is mostly just kill every Specialist you can find. I wish they put more to the game besides these three modes, since the game can get boring with just these three to play with. It is fun, but it gets old quick. I mean, would you want to play Deathmatch most of the time? I think they should have done another mode where you'd have to defuse a bomb before everyone does it first, like a Bomb Race! Everyone is an enemy and you would have to be the first the complete the mission. That would actually be fun. Of course there would be respawns and items to protect the player during his defusal. I know this would go off the tracks of the game's purpose, but that would actually be fun to play, an actual challenge to fight each other until one has the upper hand. 

All together this is a game that is for those experienced with shooters and games in general, but I think a few new people can play this game if they get the chance. You just have to play a bit to get good. It's not my style in games, but I can see me playing it later in life. The game is a cash-grab at best, but you can easily ignore it and if I were to rate it off my experience, maybe an 8 or 7. I don't know, this is mainly a first impressions thought, so you can completely ignore that. Anyways, I hope you liked this read and 'til next time...

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[Insert Rick and Morty Reference Here]

The Witcher is a great game, don't get me wrong. Everything about is just perfect and the characters we so memorable, the game is what every gamer wanted and it delivered with such great praise. The only downside, being the biggest, was how it made me see how small other games are, it just makes you hate it. I love Fallout 3, being one of the best games I've played on the 360 and had the best DLC for its time, but after playing Witcher 3 with all of its DLC, everything just looked so stupid. The DLC compared to the Witcher felt so small and so little even though Fallout had more DLC to offer. I thought that Horizon was a "Meh" game that could have some improvement, but after playing the Witcher, I despise the game for ever trying to achieve such greatness as the Witcher or even touch the RPG genre! I don't know why this happened, but I guess it was because it took off some blindfold we had after playing such a marvelous game. Hello and welcome to this Comparison Blog!

I must say that the game is perfect once more before we begin, because it's just that, a perfect game that seems to have no flaws. The combat is smooth with some easy to understand difficulty to it, every mistake is rightfully punished and gives the player enough room to learn more skills from it. You try to slash someone, but they keep blocking and parrying it. You struggle to fight and then you remember there's a parry button that's so easy to remember. That's another thing about this game, the controls are easy to remember and are easy to get use to even after you forget. It is difficult and challenging to fight people of your level or above, but it's fun and easy to move around the controls. The weapons in the game have such great and balanced stats that don't try to break the game or ruin any challenge with easy to use abilities on those weapons, with different types to follow like an Axe, Sword or Mace having different traits and damage qualities to them. Such a thing is a dream in most RPGs where most weapons are over the top and powerful; that's not the case in this game. I just love it! But when you compare this game to something like the beloved Horizon Zero Dawn, a game that is compared constantly to Witcher 3, you don't the same kind of weapons. They removed the qualities of the weapons and the uniqueness to them with different ammo types and abilities that seem tedious and over-complicated to use. Instead of having the player unlock the ammo types and abilities, they had him risk his own money to see if this weapon is better and more useful than the one he has. Now he can only use freezing projectiles. 

Even the game's combat is boring compared to the Witcher, having the player throw everything he's got at a robot and hope he's weak to it. And even if he is, the weakness won't do much to satisfy you because those "weaknesses" barely do enough damage to have fun with. The Witcher had the player at a disadvantage with the enemies, you had to find the weakness of the monster and use it. It was satisfying compared to regular attacks. You saw his life bar go down by just enough to see a difference and the game made sure that these enemies weren't going to be easy after finding their weaknesses, either limiting you with a heavy use of a magica meter or from a blade that breaks very easily. Witcher has the player enjoy a fight while giving him a challenge, you find an advantage and you use it to the fullest, but doesn't make the game easier, but just more satisfying. It's not an annoying encounter with the player constantly using the same item on a robot bird because this one item doesn't seem to do enough damage. 

Another thing that this game seem to accomplish is the world's atmosphere. In most game, you find a place that gives off the same feeling as the rest of the world, nothing special, nothing new to discover, just the same assets for the developers not to waste time and I get that. Skyrim is one of the best games when it comes to the world, giving everyone this feeling of a bleak land with a hint of war and peace. You feel that the game has its own life to it, although you see almost the same structures, pottery, furniture, architecture, almost everything feels the same, but we still feel that the game has this life to it. In the Witch, the only same assets you will find is clothing. weapons and NPCs. Everything feels so real when you first play it. The castle feels like you can be there in real life and the lands and country feels so much like Europe. The game has the player travel on foot for him to look at everything, witness the forest and the AI interacting with it, go through the mountains and watching the water flow though its crevices, it's all beautiful and has some meaning to it as well as AI interactions. That's another thing I adore about Witcher, the AI has so much livid emotion to them that it feels like you're actually strolling in a poor man's village. In Skyrim, it's mostly mountains covered in snow and more snow. It's a boring look and I wish they put more floral or vegetative life in the scenery. There are some places  in the game that stands out because of that, but those places are small and short lived. I wish they put more thought into the world's aesthetic instead of copy and paste snow and black rocks and gray grass that makes the game so muddy and unpleasing to look at. The AI interactions is flattering to say the least, but there are only four that I can think of that are world building: Royals passing through Skyrim to Cyrodiil, Thieves mugging you, Thalmor/Stormcloaks transporting a prisoner and a guy asking you to take something and not give him away to a guy threatening to kill him. They mostly feel forced, scripted and interrupts your game entirely. In Witcher, you see Bandits trying to kill people or plundering guards, pervy marauders trying to rape a wondering lady, a traveling merchant selling things on foot or a random number of guards going to their next post. I love that, you can ignore them all together and pass by them, or interact with them, getting a new mission, locations or items from them. It gives off this organic world that feels to great. Even enemies interact with each other, having mystical creatures hunt for food or stumble upon a bandit camp. I just love it! 

Even the AI had this job they always followed, not like how Oblivion did it where the AI would kill off important characters, ruining the game's story or guild quests, it was like seeing people wake up and go to work kind of thing. Seeing a guard get out of the barracks and go back to their guard posts. It's so livid to see something like that happen, most games just have every NPC sleep at this time period while guards scout the town without even sleeping. It gives off this illusion that these useless NPCs have some kind of purpose to the world, that they're more than just a model following a line of code. Every other game make everything feel so robotic, giving no humanity to them at all, making the world so... Robotic. 

Then the voice acting is just perfect and so great. There is one guy (that I won't mention) that has bad voice acting, but he can easily be ignored. Voice acting is one of my dream jobs and listening to this people do their job and is a Voice Actor's ASMR... What? I had nothing else to phrase it to! Well, these people behind the voices in the game is just marvelous. Jo Wyatt does a marvelous job with Ciri, Denise Gough made Yen have such a soothing voice and Doug Cockle did such an amazing job with Geralt, morphing a character that we all can love and enjoy. I love the people who voiced in this game, but I wish I never stumbled upon this game, because I'm starting to see flaws in a lot of voice work I use to love. God, Skyrim was one of the best in my opinion, but now it just sounds stale or our version of what Resident Evil's voice acting was. 

As for the game's story... Well, it's mostly a great story, something you can get almost commonly in the gaming world. The game has a great one, one that I would say is the best, but it's not the only one that has one. I loved Oblivion's lore and story, having something interesting to read or a character that seem to be larger than life, sparking a never before heard of  fairytale like the Grayfox. The only difference between the two (besides setting and all) is that the Witcher is a well written book series that has a lot of spin-off books involving Geralt getting new missions to pay for food that night. It even gives some character for Geralt that the Developers used to their advantage in the game, making side quest based on those spin-off books. I love that a lot and I can never see anyone doing that to another source. This game has such a marvelous tale and comparing it to others would be like comparing Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, there would be no difference, but setting. 

I won't talk about graphics since I can play Fallout 3 and 4 and still enjoy the game. Plus it would make me a hypocrite, and that I am not! The game really opens your eyes to flaw in games you loved, it's disheartening and it tells you a lot about the difference between that game and the other. Anyways, I hope you liked this and please tell me if you think the same! Did you play Witcher 3 and your perception of the gaming world changed forever? 'Til next time... 

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The Shiny-ing...