Root of All things One Dimensional

Kinetica — is the only game Sony Santa Monica ever produced aside from the God of War Series, the studio was hit with layoffs and rumors of a game cancellation this week and this makes me want to talk about why do I think Santa Monica is not a good studio and since am going to shit all over them lets talk about God of War a little as well, here we go!

One man, Big and strong goes on a rampage killing his former colleagues and fucks all the women in a R-Rated Blood Bath which was not directed by Quentin Tarantino because if it was that One guy was going to be a good character but in this mess of god-knows-what no one knows if Kratos is a good guy? a bad guy? a Jerk? a Nice guy? no one can ever know because he does everything….EVERYTHING!!!!! Kratos feels like a moody girl who hates mornings and the Coffee guy is hitting on her for some reason, so many Sony Fan boys are hating on the people who call Kratos One Dimension and I understand that because with 3 Prequels they have tried EVERYTHING anyone can do to add some depth to this character but he still feels like the guy who killed his wife and kids, his former boss, his brother, his father and all of his father’s friends and everyone who ever dared to call him a friend only to redeem himself by opening the Pandora’s Box and giving it back to the people, Still with me?

Never the less Santa Monica does have some good collaborations with Sony’s supporter’s small studios such as Ready At Dawn and thatgamecompany and that is a good thing, they offer technical consultancy and office space all great, but why can’t they produce a decent new IP? with under 15 million copies sold across 10 titles (including HD remasters and collections) God Of War is not THAT big of a hit why they don’t make a new IP like every other Sony Owned Studio? everybody else is doing it Naughty Dog, Guerilla Studios, Cambridge Studios, Team Ico is also making a game for the year 3000, why not Santa Monica? well the worst part is it seems that they tried to make one, but it was cancelled, apparently they made a Sci-fi adventure game directed by God of War 3’s very own Stig Asmussen and this dude did not work on God Of War Ascension so he might have been working on it for more than 2-3 years and now it is going down the dump, which is sad but never the less I hope to see good things from this studio in the near future and by good thing I really don’t want them to carry God Of War to the PlayStation 4, having said that I doubt that will happen too.

Wait a Little for The Evil Within

Shinji Mikami — The Father of all things Resident Evil was once one of the top of video game developers in the world certainly that strong foundation has crumbled a little bit since Resident Evil 4 by such titles like God Hand and Shadow of the DAMNED which by no means were bad but they were received poorly by fans due to bad marketing or bad release time and so on, Enter The Evil Within

Currently in development by Tango Works -Mikami’s own studio owned by ZeniMax– is set to mark the game developer’s return to the horror world and ultimately retiring him from directing games all together (or at least that what he says), based on the Game play footage the game does looks scary as hell and also looks like Stealth will play a role in it too, kinda like The Last of Us where they combined some light horror with loads of thrill and stealth except The Evil Within will have more Horror and thrills, the game is set to come out on August 28th for PC, XBOX 360, XBOX ONE, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, I personally will be playing the PlayStation 4 version.

Monday Love : Dune 2000

Developed by one of the all time best Real time strategy studios Westwood in 1998 and based on the Frank Herbert’s Popular Dune universe Dune 2000 was my first Real time Strategy game, and this game really became my favorite back then not because it was ground breaking or anything and based on the the reviews I think this game wasn’t really good but it was amazing to me because it almost felt like playing with toys, build a house for these toys and tell them where to walk and what to do and who to shoot and that feeling was amazing no doubt, when we finished the main campaign it was all good and we liked it but the game really started with us when we found the Single player Skirmish mode, needless to say I wasn’t speaking any English back in those days so I couldn’t navigate the menu like I do now days but it was revelation when I found it and we end up playing that mode for a whole summer going 8 players and beating them all not just that everyone we beat we take over their land and build a secondary base and farm more money and have more forces and then attack the next one and so on, it was an amazing feeling for me and my brothers and I think it is still one of our favorite childhood memories

Back from the dead, or how some TV shows refuse to stay down for long

 

Cancellation — is basically the most painful word to a TV lover’s ears, imagine being invested in a show loving the characters and the story and wanting it to go for on for a long while and end with a satisfying ending and then BAM! your dreams are crushed by a bunch of studio executive meat heads who decided to cancel your favorite show because it is not making them much money, it sucks really bad, but looks like some of these shows are coming back from the dead recently which is a good thing (for the most part) and a spark of light at the end of a very dark tunnel

recently Netflix picked up one of my all time favorite shows Arrested development and it was a beautiful day, despite the fact that the show was not as good as it once was and the reasons were very obvious (change of formula, can’t put all the characters on the same episode because they had other commitments…etc) but I still loved it and I also look forward to more future Bluth family returns, Comedy Central picked up Futurama and after 3 years Re-Cancelled it and now there are rumors about the show going to Netflix too which is a great thing I really think it is suited for Netflix more, more of that today NBC announced that they will bring back Heroes for a 13 episode mini series in 2015, and despite how it did end the show was really good for a while and am glad they are giving it another go because this show had potential and I just hope this time they get it right, the shows I wish they bring back now is The 4400, My Name is Earl, and Happy Endings and please don’t cancel Community, God Please don’t! 

 

House of Cards Season 2 Review

Evil People — almost 9 out of 10 fictional story that’s ever been told has always been a Good Vs. Bad, the noble hero who sacrificed himself for the greater good, Love Country and Family devotion are always the recurring theme and it is getting BORING!

Enter Frank Underwood, last season he was the House Majority Whip, this season he starts of as the Vice president of the United States of America, he is ruthless he is aggressive and he will do and say everything he can do to get what he wants, and simply put what he wants is Power, through the course of 13 Episodes you see Frank overcome the obstacles in his way and use these challenges to become stronger at every turn, impeccably acted by Kevin Spacey he delivers every line and every monolog in a very entertaining way that you just can’t stop loving this character despite how EVIL he is, kinda reminds me of Walter White and Tywin Lannister they are both evil but very few of those who watch these shows every hated them for their actions, alongside Frank there is his lovely and sometimes move ruthless wife Clare, his men of action Doug and Seth who do whatever it takes to make sure he comes out of every encounter as clean as possible, and what makes the story even more impressive is those who oppose Frank, powerful politicians and businessmen who don’t mind going the extra mile to make sure he sink in the mud with their own plans and plots of equal if not greater evil and in the blend there is You! the watcher, somehow the writers of this show made you a part of the story, Frank breaks the 4th wall almost constantly and make you a part of the story, make you involved and when he overcomes a shitty situation you will feel something like a tickle, and depending on your moral compass this could make you feel both good or bad and that is an achievement in entertainment few have ever dared to even try to touch therefor I give House of Cards season 2 a Perfect Score

Friday Love : Killer 7

Recap : A game about a group of assassins, each with different abilities and weapons that casts you into a weird world that you can only move in one direction by pressing X and when you see enemies which they are Exploding Zombies you go into the first person view mode and shoot them in the weap spot to collect some blood drop thing that you can use to upgrade your characters with, in one of the most Absurd stories ever told Killer 7 doesn’t just manages to weird you out it actually captivates you and holds you a prisoner by not knowing what is really happening and the curiosity to find out, the game until this day is considered one of the most debatable games ever made because you either fully love it or think it is the dumbest game ever made, I really liked it and I think I played it 3-4 times am not very sure but like trying to play some of the bosses with different characters (or forms) a good time, and it is till this day one of the most memorable games on the PlayStation 2 to me, here is a link for it’s video review on IGN

Whatsapp People? Guess what? Facebook bought Flappy Bird for 1 Gazillion dollars!

Facebook — The Giant Social network website that am sure we all use or used at one point in our lives announced that they have bought Whatsapp for 16 Billion dollars, yes you heard me correctly Facebook Bought Flappy Bird for 1 Gazillion Dollars!

 

According to the recent Stats and numbers that I don’t know how to read the Popular App has 450 million users with 70% of them being daily users and Facebook was like “Yeah man we gotta reach out and expand our market and reach out to those 450 million users who are not aware of facebook” and after he took another buff from his Joint he continued “We gotta reach out man”, so I think it is time for me to tell you what do I think of it, I think for most this is Bullshit because of one little reason : FACEBOOK ALREADY HAS MESSENGER WHY DO THEY NEED WHATSAPP? I mean Flappy Bird!

You see? the image above is a comparison I pulled from Google, Facebook has an App that is already being used by more users than whatsapp so why they made this move? and the worst part of all this was 2 years ago I stop using facebook regularly and moved to Instagram and Whatsapp because Facebook now is filled with Parents and old school if you need some privacy you gotta move out and now both those Apps are own by facebook, the next thing you know you get notifications about random people asking what is your number on Whatsapp seriously why this is happening, so in case you (like me) need to find a new medium to chat on without the rest of your facebook friends on I suggest either Viber or BBM they are both pretty good and quite frankly better than Whatsapp especially Viber.

Cheers

Source 

 

Dear Kojima borrow some BALLS from Ken Levine

So we all heard the news about Irrational Games laying off %90 of their staff (if you haven’t click here) because obviously my man Kenny wants to have a smaller team with a flatter structure to create games for the Core Audience, lets talk about his from a business stand point first, BioShock Series has been one of the major AAA games this past generation, it sold over 15 million copies for all 3 games combined and that is a huge number considering this game was for the most part a Single player game with a heavy focus on narrative and story telling and that is not a recipe for 20 million titles sold in this day and age, so the thought of letting go of %90 of the team and starting from scratch takes some serious balls Kinda like these :

I think for most gamers we have alot of mixed feelings here, some of us most likely wanted to see the next Irrational BioShock from Ken himself, some of us are very excited about the next project and some people don’t really care because they are busy getting headshots like it is 2007, I personally think it is going to be great for Ken to be free from managements and structures and focus solely on creating games like he obviously love to do and I also see the examples of Peter Molyneux,Shinji Mikami,Hideki Kamiya, and Keiji Inafune who went out there and started their own thing and some of the games that they are making sounds really exciting like The Evil Within and that Megaman Successor thingy, so now lets talk about Kojima (Warning : Angry talk is coming up)

This guy was my favorite game developer growing up for couple of reasons (1- I knew his name, 2- his games were awesome) and he really was the father of cinematic storytelling in games, to this day am a sucker for Stealth games and I think it all begun with him, ever since Metal Gear Solid on the original PlayStation this guy has been talking about a New IP, a New IP he is going to create and write and produce just like he did with Metal Gear Solid and he will give Metal Gear Solid to the younger members of his team and if this was a show I would call the next Segment “food me one E3 shame on you, fool me all the E3s shame on me”, he hasn’t made shit outside of the Metal Gear Series ever, which makes me think maybe it is not his decision to make, maybe Konami is the real asshole here and why not lets think about it for a second Konami is not the company we used to know I mean they barely make games any more I know it is a Toy Company mostly but all they have left is Metal Gear and Castlevania and a soccer game that no one really care about, maybe Konami is pushing Kojima to keep making these MGS games and if that is the case then

Dear Kojima

why don’t you borrow some balls from Ken Levine and start from scratch

with love always

Seriously why doesn’t he? am sure what ever he makes with a smaller team will get tons of Funding and he will have a shit load of support from Fans and he will finally make something worthy of his name and legacy outside of 2 hour long game that am pretty sure the first 20 mins it is going to be a tutorial that tells you “to use an item press X” over the codex, come on man don’t shit all over your self with every new game you make and enough with the puzzles and Moby Dick Studios mind games that you are playing it is not funny anymore, am pretty sure there is not enough time Gaps between the Metal Gear games that you can fit a bunch of other prequels to it anyway so why don’t you just quit being a wuss and quit your job!?

I guess that is all I wanted to say, Cheers

The Elder Scrolls Online, and a Rant about why am In love with Bethesda games

in 2008 I moved to Malaysia to study I remember that before I go there I bought a HP Pavilion Laptop which was heavy as fuck and I was using it for everything, I lived in a tiny apartment that was located inside my collage (it wasn’t a dorm) and I did not have any housemates I was blessed with that, despite the fact that I used to go out of the house as much as I could but during my semester break most of my mates went out of the country and I was left alone so I went to a nearby game shop and bought a copy of BioShock, and a Copy of The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, as someone who played Morrowind for a while I had an idea what kind of a game Oblivion was but I didn’t dive into it right away, first I played Bioshock for couple of days and finished it and It was awesome then I installed Oblivion and the first couple of hours I was so lost in it, I barely remembered anything that I played 5 years ago, but I was really bored so I kept on playing and what I remember that this track that really got me all goosebumpey and made me hold up a little and look around and realize despite the fact that I was in a tiny apartment in Bangi Malaysia I was actually living in an awesome fantasy land of Tamriel for a while, and that got me hooked, days after days I kept on playing and moving from one city to another and even after I finished all the guilds and all the main stories I created my own fun and exploring the world was just an amazing feeling that I never had before

 

What made all this better was after I sunk in over 250 hours Bethesda came out with another game called Fallout 3 at that time my Laptop couldn’t run it so I had to get a desktop and I did, I had a little money saved up and I sold my laptop and got a high end PC and the first game I played on it was Fallout 3 and I just fell in love with it, I spent over 300 hours in it and played all the DLCs and that was one of the most glorious gaming memories ever, in just under 6 months I have spent over 550 hours playing 2 games and I just can’t explain how good that was 

 

Few years later, on November 11th, 2011 Bethesda released a new little game called The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim you might not heard of it ;), the night that the game came out I installed it on my PC and I ran it and went to the main menu it was 1am, and everything was working fine didn’t start a new game or anything just turned off the computer and went to bed, I woke up at 6am the next day and for more than 20 days after that I played over 15 hours a day, sometimes I didn’t do any quests or anything I just walked, and looked at the place and the beautiful world that was created in front of me, that I could do anything that I want in it, I just Loved what was happening, I had the Skyrim Music tracks on my phone and even when I walked out I used to play it and felt like I was still in the game it was amazing it truly was and few times in life you feel lucky that you played a game these 3 made me feel that was, and when I read about something like “oh the animation is bad” or “the world feels empty” all I could do is to tell these people that you just don’t get it, you don’t get this game and that is ok there are millions of people who do and am not concerned about you here, which brings me to my next topic Elder Scrolls Online here is a picture

when they announced the game in 2012 I was not having the best night, I don’t remember why but It was night in May and I was not ok and I wasn’t able to sleep so I stayed in my bed reading news on my phone and it pop up on Kotaku, the Elder Scrolls Online was announced by ZeniMax Media and it was in development by ZeniMax Online Studios (not Bethesda) for over 7 years, I came out my room screaming, my housemate (a long time Bethesda hater) was sitting in the hall and of course he gave me a lecture about how it is not going to be as good as the other games because it is not made by the same developer and all I could hear was this, ever since then news after news came out telling me that he was in fact right it is not going to be AS GOOD because it is not even trying to be, this game is it’s own game, it is an MMO within the world of Elder Scrolls and I will be able to Join the Dark Brotherhood and play unlimited assassination quests, or Join the Thieves guild and steal for a living, this is not just a dream come true it is the DREAM come true, and after watching the impressions and the Hands on previous it is obvious that a Key element of Elder Scrolls is there and it needs to be taken seriously which is the Exploration and losing yourself in this world, you can’t take this game as a MMO Solely nor you can take it as an Elder Scrolls game, it is a standing point between the two and I can’t wait for it!

Few notes :
Because most of my friends are going to play it on PS4 I also have decided to join them on the PS4, I know most people would likely play this on PC but I just like to play in my bed on my huge TV and go on Dungeon raids with people I know, moreover I will mostlikely not join PvP anytime soon since I have a hole Content to explore for now and that is why I will be saying goodbye to most of my friends this summer

 

WHY I WON’T BE BUYING TITANFALL AND OTHER HATEFUL WORDS TO SAY ABOUT EA

so I came back from work today very excited to play the Titanfall Beta, I read this morning that if you have applied for the Beta before February 15th you will get access on 17th and 18th and I really was excited for it granted I never liked Multiplayer shooters, I was always bad at it and therefor I have always avoided it them, but I thought Titanfall is going to change all that and the fact that am not going to give it that go is not because I was wrong about the game mostly because for the past 2 hours all I did was swear at EA for having the worst….for being the WORST…fuck Origin

it is obvious that Titanfall is going to be big, this up and coming franchise is going to hit Call of Duty right where it hurts, forget the first game and focus on the 2nd one the one that comes right after Battlefield 5 and it is going to be on all the systems just a week before Call of Duty Ghost 2 hits the market and the situation is gonna be sticky for the two Titans of Game publishers and am not going to take any part in all that, because quite frankly I don’t like any of that I have nothing against those who can’t wait for that but not me, and this is why I wanted to play Titanfall because it is not that game yet it is an ambitious awesome looking game that seems very fun to play and it doesn’t seem to be like super hard and you won’t get killed every 5 mins and that is what I wanted but after today’s events I don’t think I will buy Titanfall -at least not anytime soon- because after downloading 12GB, and almost like gluing the stuff together on my PC I got an error message with no answer, and this is ok because am not paying for that but I could be, I mean we are talking about EA here this is the company that hasn’t fixed Battlefield 4 yet, took them a Year to take off the Online Mode in Sim City and wants you to pay to break a wall in Dungeon Keeper, EA sucks so bad now days that I am not sure I want to play anything they make the last generation they were ok I liked Mass Effect and Dead Space and Dragon Age Alot but am not sure they can keep up now, so yea for now EA is Public Enemy Number One for most players and this is sucks I wish it wasn’t like that and I was really excited to play this stupid Beta tonight!