Tag Archives: videogames

Perchance to dream 

At times I dream (yes, it happens) and whilst I was in the middle of a dream, the premise changed. I don’t know why or how. But it remember this dream, where it changed to was known to me. I had the dream several times in earl 90s. It was based on the 1987 Dungeon master by Faster Than Light games. It is now and has been forever the game dungeon master games were sized to. It is still in the forefront of my mind, but there are irregularities, the dream suddenly changed, but my memory of that part is gone, it happens and I am not sure I a the one to tell you, because the knowledge is likely forbidden. It might be because I was accessing a part of knowledge I was not allowed to access. But I am just speculating. What does matter is that I was accessing my past on games I had played and it is not a sealed matter. I saw Dungeon Master, but from there I went to SunDog and I think one other stop until I faced the game ShadowCaster, then I remembered the weakness in that game. It was cool and neat, but the setting was incomplete, it merely looked Cool. But the setting of a good game is an inert weighting, a sense of balance. There is only one superman, but even he was balanced out through weaknesses of his pwn planet (Kryptonite) and then he had a weakness in magic. (Perhaps the makers saw that as a presumptive weakness as they didn’t understand the magical world. 

So Shadowcaster was a partial good game, it was clear in some and weak in others. There is a ploy to wreak havoc as Grost (the last form you get) and when your health becomes too low, you changed into Maorin and heal a lot faster. But that setting is not a great one. The idea was to get the different forms in a SunDog type of game though something that might sone kind of a Ben10 watch or some pendant. But the setting is limited at first, I am leaning towards the pendant as some ‘device’ is an easy way out and this pendant comes with a pentagram and that pentagram has 5 points. The idea is that that the pentagram could be top or inverted, giving us a good and an evil side. Also the game has an inner side to the pentagram, as such there are 2 times 5 characters, I am still working on the good versus evil side of it, but I reckon that it will be order versus chaos, evil versus good is so 50s. 

But again it is a setting born from the amalgamation of good games, optionally making a great game. And I realise that these good games were working with the limitations that we knew were in place but as I realise that really great games were made by Peter Molyneux and Sid Meier and they were able to create great games with only 64KB, should we not be able to emulate that greatness when you get 1000% of what they have? (Just asking), so as we travel to these ‘distant’ places and and the essence of these characters and add them to the pendant and the setting has two entrances a start of the order story and an entrance to the chaos game. But these settings are fluidic at best, but it sets you on your quest. Perhaps it is that you relish order because chaos is just to chaotic (or better stated, you do not relish the creative and free lifestyle that chaos driven people rely on) and it could be trivial like that. Perhaps you see that order versus chaos is a better fitting considering films like Star Wars and a host of other games and movies. As such there is a larger setting to all this and the setting for order versus chaos can take up lots of settings and this os part of the journey and as you consider that you are uniting vies, the storyline in this will be largely RPG based and as well united these stories over the 10 worlds we educate the gamer on the essential need for order to progress, but in all these worlds there is a need for chaos as well, the views might be opposite, but it anything is learned from the setting of Babylon 5, the setting is that we tend to be a combination of both as such there is not one good side and one evil side, even though it is partially seen, but the settings of good versus evil  and whilst some ‘attribute’ this to fundamental philosophical and religious dichotomy between selfless compassion and destructive selfishness, the setting of this also defeats the purpose as selfishness tends to be limiting, as does compassion. Ask any nurse on the weakness of compassion and they will grudgingly agree that in some cases it is essential to act selfishness. Star Trek (the original series) gave us that setting in a fight between good Kirk and evil Kirk. It was inspired on was inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson’s character who is struggling with his evil alter ego. The series gave us a little better setting where we have traits that are good and evil and we need to combine those. As such I feel that order versus chaos might be a better fit to the game. 

This is a setting where we have to unite these views in 10 worlds and we set the stage to these sides on different sides of the planets we are visiting. Basically we get 2 versions of the planet of any planet and we get the whole range of planets that are involved. Optionally we get other planets that are involved where we get no character but they still ave RPG levels that require resolving and there is the rub that some characters are required before missions can get done, so there is that implication coming your way as some levels cannot be resolved before you get into the water (dropping a cat in water is not always a great idea), I had the scratches to prove it (they healed over the years) but that is the premise of what I would hope would make a great game. 

Have a great day this day

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Stealing cars for fun

Last week GTA5 was released. GTA stands for Grand Theft Auto. I remember the very first one on the PC (long long time ago). I thought it was fun and had an original streak. To be honest, it was fun, but never really my cup of tea. That part I learned when I bought the fourth one (after many years of not virtually stealing cars). I have nothing negative on the game. It looked good, but I didn’t get into the game, this happens. Does that make it a bad game?

No!

It just makes it a game (many) other people like. So, because of that I did not go out to get the fifth one (also, I am severely broke).

Others will enjoy the game and most will love it. Fair enough!

The fact that some call it 10/10 is debatable (perfection in gaming is rare), so when I saw that Gamespot gave it 9/10 I shrugged my shoulders. 9/10 is really good, so many would buy that game in an instant reading that game score.

There are additional issues for me to not go for a perfect score. In my mind the more perfect a game is, the smaller its population. I reviewed games in the past and my first perfect score was for a game called Ultima 7. I myself am an RPG fan; many knew this so when they saw that they knew that my score was biased (as a review tends to be) and based on my love for RPG. That game was made in the age when we were dependant on DOS and those graphics were truly exceptional. But let us get back to stealing cars on a console. Gamers come in all shapes and sizes. When you invest 200 million Euro in a video game, you are either a true visionary or you are skating on thin ice on the edge of an abyss called insanity (often these two are the same).

So, as I saw some of the initial results, it seems that the makers are about to make a billion dollars on a game. Good luck! I wish them all the best in all sincerity!

When you are willing to take that much of a risk, you deserve those levels of profit. I truly mean this!

My reservation remains true. The larger a gaming population you want to attract, the larger the chance that you do no such thing. Ubisoft with Assassins Creed is in my view evidence of that. Adding things left right and centre and as such, more glitches, more issues and less joy (read additional frustration).

Until today, when I saw the latest ‘Feedbackula’ (at http://au.gamespot.com/shows/feedbackula/?event=gta-v-review-revulsion-20130920) I got seriously weirded out.

Some reviewers are good, some are bad, but to go after these reviewers in personal abuse is taking it way too far. So watch the video and stand by your reviewers. Were these reviews wrong? Not really! Like me, some reviewers look at certain items in a game.

A reviewer called Caroline called the game a Misogynistic experience. For those unaware of a dictionary, it explains misogynistic as “hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women“. Well that part seems to be proven in the past and what I read in the present. Let’s not forget that in GTA-IV the game was about the Eastern European Mafia. Not the group that seems to hold women in high regard.

It is interesting that the playable main character cannot be a woman.

I will not judge that on fairness because of the environment of the game. This game is as politically incorrect as it tends to get and as the game is all about non-legal pursuits that tends to happen, also fun is that the video game is about to make a billion, whilst last year in Canada, actual car thefts (as in Grand Theft Auto for real) costed the Canadian population around a billion dollar, just a funny coincidence.

But this is not about the actual thefts.

I am actually not sure whether this should be about freedom of speech, freedom of opinion or obsession, but I do know it is about not accepting trolling. The reviewers seemed to have given their honest opinions. They spoke out what they felt was the case, making for the freedom of speech. However the obsession of GTA fans seems to be out of control. Why the abuse? If you think that the review is so perfect and deserves a 10/10, then add your own review on Gamespot, which I do regularly for games I like.

Trolling on Gamespot is so uncool and so ungeeky that I reckon that the trolling was never done by true gamers.

Enjoy gaming and have a nice day!

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