Titan Quest - An endurance test on your sanity

First off I want to say my index finger is fucking sore right now and if I can avoid typing this shit out I would but the world must know of this piece of shit called Titan Quest. First of all its a Diablo clone. It would mean that you go around left clicking everything until it dies. While Diablo has a simple game play design, every single clone I met seem to fuck it up. Titan Quest over complicates things for the sake of over complicating.

There are huge trees you can pick skills from and mix and match with two trees into different classes. Each character can pick two trees and learn skills from either. But most of the skills are filler talents or garbage. So the best ones are the passives which effectively boils down to holding your left mouse button as its the most effective and the only way to get through the game. Your right mouse button will be hot keyed with the potion button for simplicity's sake. These skills do nothing to help you in your battle, so all you need is your mouse. Fuck the keyboard it does crap.

The difficulty is horrendous. I don't mind games with a challenge but if the challenge and difficulty of this game is how fast you can click your potion button then its a piece of shit. Whenever you go into town just go ahead and buy 300-600 potions. You will be hitting your right mouse button every 5 seconds or whatever amount of time the potions cools off. You'll burn through those potions in 20 minutes. Some monsters are so weak they do literally no damage then suddenly you meet a monster that can do 50% of your health in one shot and they come in packs. If you miss the potion by just one second you will die. Then you get asshole monsters that stun you for 1-2 seconds and if they stun you right when its time to hit your potion you die. This is Titan Quest.

The game started out fine, but as it progressed it just dragged on and on. What you seen in the first act is basically the same as the rest. The map is never randomized so every time you come back its exactly the same. This holds true for the multi player as well. Why no randomization? Too much work? The maps are long, tedious, and boring. Every map looks exactly the same. Some trees a large area with one exit and 2-3 minor caves you can explore for nothing. Quests are mindless and easily missed. As you reach further and further it gets more and more stupid. Once you reach act three you'll notice all the monsters moving at super speed and doing half your health in a single shot. Once you reach the final act the difficulty ramps up to asshole levels. Everything stuns you and you're standing there stun locked for five and up to ten seconds at a time. Its fucking frustrating to stand around doing nothing. If I wasn't on co-op I would be dead the second I got stunned.

Multi player in this game is shit as well. You go online with your single player character so if you want to be an asshole you can just hack all your gear. The problem with this game is the areas are so far apart theres basically no way to play with others unless they start at the same time as you. Going through one area for a minor part of the main quest would take thirty minutes to an hour. The way point portals are so far apart that if you're looking to group up for a quest its going to eat half your day. And the most grating part is chatting. HOW HARD IS IT TO DESIGN A FUCKING CHATBOX. To type you press T to bring up the chatbox. You type then press enter to send the message. When you hit enter the chatbox grays out so you can close it again by pressing T. If you want to talk more you press enter again. BUT if your trying to use skills or close it and it keeps trying to type out 1111111tttttttttttt11ttttt1t1t1t1t11t22ttt in your chatbox. Just to add salt to the wound you can't hold down backspace to clear it so you have to hit backspace 50x or just go fuck it and send it out because whose going to fucking break their fingers more.

The game started out fine, but its way too repetitive. As soon as you're done the four acts. You get to repeat the game in nightmare and hell mode. But they're called different names. Are you so fucking lazy to resort to redoing the game in another difficulty? And the game isn't difficult. I don't find clicking potion buttons over and over difficult. I find it tedious and stupid. Going through the game once is an ordeal already. The maps are too big, the way points are too far apart, the side quests are impossible to find, there are too many pointless monsters while traveling, and scenery are exactly the same. These things make the game longer than it should be. Only thing decent I can say about the game is the BGM is nicely done. But the BGM doesn't really appear that often only whenever the fuck it wants to. Theres are options to "decrease the rate it appears," "normal," and "increase the rate it appears." What the fuck? Why so ambiguous? Why can't we just have ON and OFF. Seems like the easiest options but whatever. Its not like you'll hear it over the grunting sounds of dying tigermen or mantises. Isn't the game about mythology? Why are the monster designs so bad. And why the difficulty inconsistencies on these monsters.

Of all the Diablo clones, this one is not the worst. But anything can be better than Torchlight so its not saying much. My fingers are still hurting and I'm done talking about this shit.

Dota-likes

Dota type games are referred to usually as MOBA or ARTS. MOBA stands for multiplayer online battle arena while ARTS stands for action real time strategy. Both means the same thing, Dota clones. No one is sure how it got so popular or why the worst self-entitled degenerates of society congregate to these types of games and ruin the community into a seething pile of rancid shit. But every game has these people you will say. No, the amount of assholes in these type of games are legendary.

Everyone thinks they're better than the others and every time something goes wrong its their fault. Why? Thats like playing basketball and when you miss a shot your team starts yelling at you for letting the other team get the ball. Then they go on and on for 50 fucking minutes about how the game was lost because you missed that ball and that you should drown in the fucking ocean for sucking so badly at a harmless game of basket ball and how he is going to quit and never play with you again because you are the worst type of scum for missing a fucking ball in the fucking basket. Does that even fucking make sense? Why do people act this way in Dota-likes?

Then there are the so called "trolls" who find it funny to ruin the game for your team. How about people who call out a role and then proceed to bitch and moan when he doesn't get it? Or thinks its funny to keep suiciding and calling out your locations in all chat? Lets go back to basketball again. Imagine a guy on your team keeps calling for you to pass the ball to him and you can't because he's being blocked to shit. He then gets mad and goes "what the fuck man if you're not going to pass me the ball I'm going to ruin the game," then proceeds to taking the ball from your team, checking your own team, and giving the ball to the other team and or throwing the ball into your own basket. Is that fun for either team? No? Yeah you'll get thrown off the court. Not here you don't. They just join another game and repeat it until they log off and come back the next day.

If you play Dota-likes this will happen. I don't know why its so concentrated in these games. Is it because its free? Is it because its a team game and you can't pick your own teams? Has it always been there for every game but you just can't see it? Why do people even play this? Its like the abusive boyfriend you keep crawling back to. He doesn't give a shit because he knows you'll keep coming back. You know he's an asshole but you just can't help yourself. Why are these games so popular?

I am never touching another F2P and Dota-like game again.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade Part 1 - Food porn and hot springs galore

Muramasa is a Vanillaware game. Its not bad, the combat is fun but like all Vanillaware games there are huge flaws. The first and biggest flaw is that there is basically no story. You start in the middle of nowhere where stuff has already happened and theres no conclusion at all. This game is similar to Odin Sphere but the combat is greatly improved. The story however is much weaker. There are two characters you can play as, Momohime or Kisuke, and it takes place in the feudal Japan era. It has so much potential but they blew it.

Like other Vanillaware games, the graphics are great. Since this one is on the Wii its much better than the PS2 titles. Character designs are decently done, some are a little stupid like Momohime is basically running around with no pants and the fox girl Kongiku on Momohime's path has breasts almost bursting out of her clothes. The background is nicely done but there is a minor flaw. Sometimes you can't tell what is in the background and what is in the foreground. Sometimes you're not really sure what you can step on and what you can't. For a platforming game this can be annoying. But the maps almost all use the same background for laziness so once you see it once you won't get that problem again.

Combat is amazingly fun. Its fluid and its fast paced. Its a side scrolling brawler with a variety of combos and special skills based on the sword you picked. There is a normal blade which is fast and the combos are usually fast mini hits. The long blade is slower but it does multiple mini hits in a single swing. The long blade has a bug however that I abused a bit. If you jump in the air and use a long sword combo you have this gravitational pull when you hit something that pulls them towards you even if the enemy is in the air behind you. When you do this they cannot perform any action and with a long blade you can chain about 4-5 combos in the air before you finally reach the ground. Doing so on enemies that can leap in the air can combo upwards to 200-300 hits and kill them before you reach the ground.

However fun the combat is the difficulty is incredibly easy. Most monsters you can just spam your A button and kill them all. Monster lairs and Bosses provide a bit of a challenge but they are not that difficult either. When you first start a game it it lets you pick between two difficulties, Muso for people who suck horribly at gaming, or Shura the normal mode for average players. Once you beat either story once on Shura mode Shigurui mode is enabled. HOWEVER! You must start a brand new game instead of starting on new game+ which is continuing your story with the second character. The game lets you play either character at either time. You can play them both at once or finish one first. It is entirely up to you. Note that both characters can use swords unlocked by either character so its beneficial to play both at once. You may not have the amount of souls needed though. This game also pulls the same bullshit as other Vanillaware games though. To get the second ending of either character you must first complete both character's first ending and equip a secret sword you get after getting both of the first endings then beating the respective final bosses. To get the true ending you must equip the secret sword after getting both secondary endings then beating the respective final bosses. A pain in the fucking ass.

The characters are entertaining and you really want to get to know them a bit better but it never really expands on it. Momohime's route you're a princess whose spirit was forced out of her own body by a criminal called Junkuro. Who is he? What is he trying to acomplish? Nothing really is explained. All you know is he knows the Obouro style sword fighting. To keep it for himself he killed his master and all the other disciples. He's a badass who takes no shit from no one and travels to hell and heaven to get a sword back. Along the way you hear Momohime whine at every possible stop about how evil he is being. You get a few sentences of what happened such as Momohime's family being killed and overthrown, some guy who appears for like 2 minutes and gets his ass kicked by Junkuro, random monk who tries so hard to punish Junkuro and then gets a epiphany at the end of the game and turns "good" and travels around the land with Momohime following him because of Junkuro's fucking sacrifice to save Momohime.

The story is short. I finished Momohime's route in a little over 6 hours. Thats pathetically short especially with me dicking around in monster lairs, hot springs, and engaging in food porn every chance I got. I also left the game on for long periods of time while I did other shit. Theres more hidden content after you beat both stories but still. Another thing in this game is the hot springs. How fucking common are hot springs in Japan? Every 10 maps you see a new hot spring and even after beating a boss you all get into the hot spring together. You see a barely naked Momohime walking around. She looks like shes 12 for fucks sake. Its a free heal and sometimes you get to talk to people. Then theres the food porn. You can go into restaurants and order food and it will be placed on the table in front of you. You have to click A repeatedly to eat the item. It eats it bite by bite and Momohime will keep commenting on how nice the food is, etc etc. Cooking isn't much different. Sometimes I wanna bake a bunch of potatoes for the boss and its taking fucking forever because you have to dig a hole place the potato in the hole and cover it with leaves then set it on fire then pull it out. FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL POTATO. There no auto cook, you have to keep hitting the A button. It was cool seeing it for the first time but seeing it time after time is tedious.

This is it for now.

Greed filled DLCs

What is a DLC? If you played anything in the past decade you would know. DLC stands for Downloadable Content. In other words content that is not included in the main game and you have to pay extra money to get. Doesn't sound too bad does it. Pay a little and you can play more of the game you love. WRONG. DLCs are nothing but an attempt to milk every last drop of money from a game. Whatever happened to paying 60 bucks and getting a full game? Nowadays you pay 60 bucks get half a game with 3 release day DLCs where you have to pay 15 bucks each for if you want all the stuff. Then release a new DLC every 3 months for 15 bucks each that has like 20 minutes of content. Fuck you.

My biggest gripe is how stupidly short and how overpriced these DLC are. DLCs are never worth their money. Never. Every company has adapted DLCs into their marketing strategy. Release a game but purposely leave out content. When the game is shipped include DLCs to preorders and those that didn't preorder because they want to wait for reviews to know if the game is a piece of shit or not have to pay 45 bucks for more DLCs! Why the fuck are there release day DLCs? Why is it not included into the game?

"Oh we wanted to include it but we wanted to ship the game out so the game went gold already and so we decided to charge you 15 bucks for each DLC instead of letting you download it for free! Enjoy dipshits."

I like CD Projekt Red's marketing strategy. No DRM because it hinders paying customers and free DLCs because charging their customers 15 bucks for no content is bullshit. They just recently released another patch that added a brand new mode, balances, and an arena system for The Witcher 2.

Lets take a look at a DLC that I tried. Dragon Age Origins for one. Return to Ostagar. You get a new area on your map. You walk over and you appear in the same Ostagar you were in at the start of the game. Wander around you see the dead king then kill an Ogre and you get the king's armor. Then you leave the area in about 5 minutes. That was the DLC. Was it worth 15 bucks? No. Was it worth 5 bucks? No. Was it worth 1 buck? No. Would it be worth it if it was free? No. This fucking shit isn't even worth the time and bandwith to download. You have got to be the greediest fucking shits to release something like that. There was no effort in it. Thats not the worst part. The worst part is there are a shitload of even more terrible DLCs out there.

To make things worse DLCs are tied to your account so if you were to buy a preowned game then you wouldn't get any of this shit. They want to counteract piracy and resales with DLCs as well as milk more money. This was the reason why so many companies have release day DLCs. Like 60 bucks isn't too much for a piece of shit game already why drive up the price even more. If they could charge 100 bucks for their game they would but for now they'll stick to their 60 bucks game with release day DLCs.

Release day DLCs are the most stupidest shit since the horse armor DLC for oblivion for like what 15 bucks? All it gave you was horse armor. HORSE FUCKING ARMOR. Stop buying low quality bullshit. If you do they'll get off their asses and put some work into them. Maybe then we would get something worth downloading.

CRAB FUCKING ARMOR

Word Cloud of Gaming

I played Dead Island and it was incredibly boring and shitty. I didn't wanna finish it because I just can't stand it anymore so I decided to make a word cloud to summarize all the games on this blog.

Vanillaware - What the fuck yet again

Having just finished my previous post, I found something something to add to it. Rather than add to it I'll add to the rest of the Vanillaware games. They made the games Odin Sphere and Grimgrimoire that I reviewed. They are sexist and their designs while are unique and colourful, are sexist as fuck. Like in Odin Sphere, the last boss of the first character arc is Odette which I have linked a video of in my review.

Here is a picture

Is there any reason for her breasts to be bigger than her head? While I have not played Muramasa since I don't own a Wii, the character designs seem to be good and proportional minus a few. Now the newest Vanillaware game is coming out for ps3.

Dragon's Crown

HOLY FUCK Look at the fucking breasts on the sorceress. Not only is it so massive that she needs the dead skeleton of her slain enemies to hold it up or she'll topple over onto the ground. Her ass is so huge she needs to stick her staff in between it or it'll collapse into a black hole from its sheer mass. Look at the combat animations. The breasts flop around in all direction as if they're jell-o. I know Vanillaware's, mostly Odin Sphere, art is ultra exaggerated on purpose. With an enormous giant upper body and muscles that are the weight of an entire high rise building. While the Amazon also has that but she is scantily clad like all fantasy women in art and games. What would be next? A guy with a giant bulge in his pants and a penis so large he needs to hire a slave to hold it while he goes off in battle? Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen because what are exaggerated in men are strength, and whats exaggerated in women is sexuality. It would never happen, but for once I like to see the opposite.

Men and Women in Video Games

Some feminists were complaining about how video games are male dominated. They claim that the reason for it is because games are made to cater to male audiences. Which is true I wouldn't argue against that. But their suggestions for it is completely retarded. They want a character where it uses "femininity" instead of "masculinity" to get things done. How? To paraphrase:

Instead of a woman with a penis, she could use her charm to get things done. Without fighting since aggression is a masculine trait.

What? What kind of shit is that? Would girl gamers want to play this fucking shit? No? Yes? I don't fucking know. What I know is I know a lot of girl gamers and I'm fucking sure as hell they wouldn't want to play that shit. Why do people have to use the label "girl gamers." Are they any different? Misogynistic male gamers would like to make you believe they are. I haven't always been a gamer. From what statistics show though that 54% of gamers are female. What games I'm not sure but that probably doesn't seem too off to me. I even heard of Starcraft championships for girls in Korea. I found that a little odd because if you're good enough, whats stopping you from stomping the boys as a girl? Because you lack a penis and your aggression isn't your main trait so its a huge handicap? Fuck that. Its because some men are scared of being emasculated by losing to a woman. Because of that they will purposely not acknowledge girl gamers.

Girl gamers are not rare at all. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of male friends, I got my first male friend at like grade 4. We all played a bit of video games because video games were the new thing. But mostly we just did stupid shit like run around in the backyard while our friend's older sisters spray us with the hose. Which is really fucked up now I think about it. But honestly, I don't get how a lot of people go "there are no girls that play this game." Then act all surprised when a girl plays and stalk them. "Oh wow a girl plays a video game she must be ugly or a fat Asian!" Of course a girl who plays video games must be ugly or fat or Asian. *rollseyes* I don't get the Asian thing though. One thing I really notice is the hostility between girl gamers. Playing around in different games I noticed there are two types of girl gamers. I don't like to generalize but this is what a girl gamer from my guild on WoW told me.

"I don't like to play with girls because they suck at games. They(the other group) think they can get away with anything because they are a girl. Me and my sister plays all the time and we never do any of the shit they do"

When I first heard that I shrugged and moved on. It was much later that I noticed a lot of other girl gamers shared her view. Granted I stuck more with their group since my guilds were usually on the more hardcore side. One particular event stuck with me. One experience I had was playing WoW and there was a "girl" in the group who went around rolling need on everything and randomly pulling. I don't like to call out people for being a retard but she was being a retard. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried to teach her since I was on an alt and it might be one of her first few time partying. Then I get a "Lol, I'm a girl I don't know how to play." Before anyone could say anything, the main tank calls out "I'm a fucking girl too and I know how to play. Its people like you that makes guys think we can't play games." And proceeds to kick her. It was a great moment. Some people say girls don't like to play video games because of the way they are treated. Its very hostile against women online. I never really cared who I play with. It doesn't matter if its a girl or a guy, if they are fun to play with and they don't piss you off, then it sounds like you have a good person to friendlist. My friends tell me I'm very equal at treating anyone regardless of gender in real life. I always ask them, "should men and women be treated any differently?" Really ask this question, should men and women be treated differently? This is the root of the problem of men and women in video games. Women are viewed as inferior a lot of the time. When a man is being made fun of he gets called a woman. When a woman is being praised she is compared to a man.

I hear claims that girls don't play video games because when they were growing up they were told video games were for guys and they should play with dolls and shit. I'm going what the fuck are you talking about? They also say the same about women in engineering or other programs of study. I don't know anything about that but I agree that women aren't properly portrayed in video games. They are either the chicks with dicks (femme fatales) or the damsel in distress. Who does feminists think is the perfect female character in video games? Bayonetta. I am not making this shit up. They think she is the perfect woman. She is empowering, she makes men uncomfortable, and she kicks ass while being sexy. To quote.

To prohibit a character like Bayonetta, and rush to cover her up in disapproval, is a rejection of her particular brand of femininity. Why do that? Because she makes men uncomfortable? If men feel uncomfortable with Bayonetta, maybe that means she succeeds.

As a woman, I haven't often been satisfied by female character options that effectively boil down to "the same thing as a man, just with breasts and a ponytail." Thanks to its innovative approach to the idea of female power, Bayonetta is the first action game heroine that's made me directly conscious of how cool it is to be a girl.

Yeah, she is about as cool as Dante from Devil May Cry. The creator of both those characters are the one and same guy. And by cool I mean over the top embarrassing. I might find them "cool" if I was maybe 14. I played the beginning of Bayonetta. While its a fun action game with nice game play the fucking characters and over the top retardation makes me wanna smash my head into the table. The first scene was Bayonetta going around shooting shit while some guy tosses her guns with fly me to the moon playing in the background. The fucking shit drags on for like 10 hours. By the time you're finally done you don't feel like playing anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Uya32CHF8&feature=fvsr

Watch at your own discretion.

She's not much different than Dante. Is Dante a good portrayal of men? Fuck no. There are plenty of women in video games, why would you pick the most over the top one? Its not like theres none of them. Off the top of my head I can think of a bunch. April Ryan from The Longest Journey, Faith from Mirror's Edge, Alice from American Mcgee's Alice, the main girls from Persona 4 (OH GOD). These are games where its only the main character. There are plenty of great secondary characters too which I'm too lazy to think of. Anything is better than a character that uses her hair as her clothes and as you build up more and more combos she gets more and more revealing until shes fighting in the nude. Again, I'm not making any of this shit up. You can play for yourself or even youtube it. Women in video games are highly sexualized. Sure men are sexualized too but there are so many different types of men. Women are all big breasts skinny waist hourglass body. Thats it. There are barely any variation. Its stupid. I have however been told that women like the women in video games. "I don't want to play an ugly character," is the most common response, "women like it as much as men." I don't really know but feminists seem to be saying the opposite.

While sex appeal is one thing, another thing is the roles they are usually fit into. I played a lot of JRPGs, A LOT. They are culturally different so I will not go into details. But long story short they are very sexualized and are very subservient. I do not wish to go into another discussion of subservient Asian women. I had enough of that shit I don't want to talk about it again. Most games, women are the damsel in distress. This is because the main character is usually male given its target audience. So obviously you have to rescue the women with your manliness. In fantasy games, women are usually spell casters or supportive spell casters because they are fragile(I don't fucking know) but apparently the femme fatales are exempt. Women are usually support roles in those games. I like how blatant some of the sexism is for example in Xenogears, the main female character (high ranking officer) was forced to stay home because she's a woman. At first she's pissed but she then said this quote to another female character, "Men like someone to watch the home when they are fighting. They can't fight if they don't have the peace of mind that they will have somewhere to return to." You can't imagine the amount of blood I puked up. They don't even try to hide it.

However the opposite is true, in games like Witcher 2, sexism is all over the place. But it fits the story and world of the game. Its a sexist, racist, dark, grim world. Everyone is flawed, everyone is an asshole, and everyone would stab you in the back given half the chance. It fits but in a game like Xenogears it doesn't. Look at games like Dragon Age or Mass Effect. Bioware games where theres "romance!" Look at how some of the characters are developed. Holy fuck are the women sexualized. Look at Miranda from Mass Effect 2. She has ass-pants for fucks sake. There are games that overly girlify things like Final Fantasy X-2. They turned the original characters from FFX into stupid bimbos. For what? Sex appeal. I couldn't finish that game ever. Most of the time the sexism begins before you even play the game. It is the games that are made for women. Yes it exists. They're games like Cooking Mama, Bratz, The Little Mermaid and My Little Pony. They have giant signs and stickers that go, "Games 4 girls." Why? Do women need to be singled out and then pigeon holed into buying shitty games? The fuck. Some people have no idea how to market their shit.

This blog post brings up a good point. There is a reason why sex is so taboo in western culture while violence is completely fine, as long as its a man getting hurt. It is because people view women as weaker than men, which isn't true. Same reason I get a lot of shit because I treat women the same way I would treat a man, and my male friends squirm to it. Why? Because they think women can't hear some of the shit men talk about because they're fragile. Fuck you. I grew up with a bunch of female friends who talk more openly about this shit than you. Plus chivalry is stupid, it was fine back in the middle ages but its the modern age people, women are equals theres no need for this condescending behavior. I don't want this to become another argument on feminism so I'm stopping here.

Every once in awhile you near something nice. Recently there was a step forward. Although small but a small step makes a big difference. For the first time you are able to create female avatars in NHL games. It might be small but small steps add up. Then you get bullshit that takes a step backwards. People are like "its hidden for a reason." Being hidden doesn't change the fact that its offensive. If they see it they have the right to get pissed. Thats like stealing something and then getting caught and go "Oh I was hiding it from you. If you didn't see me stealing it you wouldn't get pissed. Therefor you shouldn't get pissed when you caught me stealing so I will be going now." Way to go.

Women can play the same games men can play. Women can do better in the same games men can play. But fuck the majority of the men are too insecure to acknowledge that. I got my ass kicked by girls in games before. Do I feel bad? No. Does she being a girl have any sort of handicap? No. Stop making a big deal out of this. The games that overly sexualize women are usually the games that sexualize the men as well. The men are usually big strong silent types doing all sorts of bad-assery. When a male character is brought out thats less masculine he's automatically hated by everyone. Waaahhh he's not manly enough, he's a faggot, give us back Commander Kickass! Yet everyone loves it when a strong female character turns into a bimbo and starts giving fanservice, see FFX-2. Unfortunately thats the way things will go. Sex sells. Game companies take advantage of that and sell sell sell. Its not likely going to change but every so often you'll get a nice game where the women aren't sexualized. Just don't hold your breath waiting, it might be awhile.

Bitching about Bitching about Bitching

There are a few that are bitching about me bitching about every game. When I am playing a game they'll go "well time to get started on a new review on your blog." I don't hate every game! It just so happens that this blog is made for the purpose of bitching about shitty games and shitty decisions in the gaming industry. I don't hate every game, I don't hate all jrpgs. What I like may differ from someone. My likes and dislikes differ from Cent and he shares the blog. Some games I like, some I am indifferent, and the ones that suck shit are posted here.

Here are some of the games I like. They are not in any specific order and they are games I have recently played in the past few years that I can remember. Click the name for a clip.

Witcher Series - I was skeptical at first of this game. I thought it was just another fantasy sword and magic RPG. How surprised was I to find this gem. This is what Dragon Age wanted to be, should have been, and could have been. You're a witcher, you're not super human you're just a mutant. You have some special powers but mages can blow your shit up if they're pissy and people can tear you new assholes if you are not careful. You fight with a bunch of tools like traps, bombs, potions, and other stuff to give you an advantage. The game itself is dark, the decisions you make can come back and bite you in the ass, and it has one of the best storytelling in any game. Though it doesn't have flashy magic skills or impossible to fight with weapons and armour the graphics are amazing but then again its just another sword and magic RPG. The story and setting is what sets it apart. Its a jumbled mess of politics. Kings fighting kings and you're just a nobody getting caught up in it. You have your own goals. The only negative part about this game is once you play it, you'll ruin gaming because no other game comes close to it.

Aquaria - Its an indie game you can get off steam for cheap. Two developers got together and collaborated on this game then afterwards split up and did their own thing. Which was a shame because this game is amazing. The graphics are clean and crisp and it has probably one of the best BGM I have heard in a game. The atmosphere fits very well with the music. Its soothing and relaxing. The world is designed well and the marine life is accurate. The game itself reminds me of Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Its a huge world where you can go anywhere you like. Until you get powers though most of the places are impassable. But once you get it you'll remember where you met those strong currents and go back there with a new form. There are lots of secrets, some puzzle solving, and a sing system. Its like Zelda Ocarina of time where you have to play notes for special songs that do special effects. Loads of fun.

Mirror's Edge - Its a first person parkour game. The game itself isn't that great near the end and the story is shitty but the parkour is amazing. The design and the atmosphere is great. Its has extremely clean contrasting colours and tall buildings that reaches the skies, which makes things awesome to jump from. Basically you run from rooftop to rooftop while people are shooting at you. You have to go fast or you get shot and die or you lose your momentum and miss your jumps. You have to go fast and you want to go fast. When you're going as fast as you can with your heart beating from the adrenaline and then you see nowhere to go so you take a leap of faith then grab onto a helicoptor. That is the most amazing feeling in a game. After each stage you have to take a breather from all the adrenaline. However there are parts where its more puzzle solving and you're forced to stop and solve it. I don't want to solve puzzles you fuckers I want to keep moving. The game starts sucking near the end because of the combat, which doesn't really fit in the game. Overall this is a good game if just for the adrenaline alone.

Mana Khemia - Yeah its a JRPG. First impressions you go, this game looks like a piece of shit. The graphics are terrible I agree but after playing for a little while it doesn't look so bad anymore. Its a school simulator? Is it like persona? Yes it is exactly like persona but its not fucking stupid where you have to go to school and actually do all that shit. Classes are simple and straight forward, alchemy class you mix stuff, combat class you fight stuff, collecting class you find items in dungeons. You can pick whatever classes you like after you finish the first few chapters. If you get A's and high marks you can take less classes. Every chapter moves the story forward a bit. Its a bit light hearted with enough comedy without sounding forced or repetitive. The best part though is the combat. It reminds me of Grandia where you can knock the target's action back but turn based instead. However, you can have 6 people in your party at all times, 3 as the vanguard 3 as the support. These are interchangable at anytime during combat, especially when the boss is about to do a super attack you just hit your switch button then bam your active target switches with a support and he takes the damage for you. When you switch you cast special effects too and you can also use them to chain combos for you. Another great part of the game is the alchemy system where you mix things you find together to make other stuff. For example adding king crab and blue steel will turn into a crabarmor with spikes and crab shells all over it. Adding devil panties and other stuff will give you a dominatrix suit. You know now that you think about it the game itself is pretty fucked up. You go around beating up angel girls, devil girls, dragon girls, sword girls, fairy girls, tree girls, koala girls, girl girls, etc etc. Basically you go around beating up semi nude loli girls and collect their drops that range from underwear to hair. The story itself is good though. Whatever you do, don't play the second one. I have nearly a whole review typed out and never finished writing it.

King's Bounty Series - If you played Heroes of Might and Magic you'll notice the similarities. But that game was based on the original King's Bounty. This is a remake of the old King's Bounty with a completely different story. I'm not that big of a fan of HoMM but I have cherished childhood memories of friends, cousins, everyone getting together on the computer and playing "Hotseat" version of the game. So when King's Bounty came out I gave it a go. The graphics are amazingly well done. The music is superb. Just listen to that BGM in the video. The story itself is quirky but entertaining. However not everyone will like this game as its a little slow paced and the difficulty is all over the place. You need a lot of strategy to clear battles. The sequel which is not as good as the first one is still a good game. Basically you travel around fighting randomly generated enemies and finding randomly generated items while hiring randomly generated creatures. Did I mention all this is randomly generated when you start a game? So no playthrough is exactly the same. You might have a hard time in one game and your friend finds a phoenix spell for his mage from the first shop in the game and starts blazing through the game like a fucker bird on fire. This is King's Bounty.

Okami - This is an action platformer similar to the Zelda series. You play as a goddess in the form of a wolf and you go around vanquishing evil and performing miracles with your celestial brush. The design is unique and very well made. The music also fits perfectly. You have multiple spells and weapons and other stuff similar to Zelda where you find them and then you can backtrack to open up new areas. The story is a little repetitive at times and they got extremely lazy near the end. But any fan of the Zelda series should give this game a go. The combat is fun, the characters are all a little eccentric but memorable and likable. It was the second highest rated game on the PS2 when it came out but unfortunately, Clover said their sales were pretty bad (The fuck!?) so they won't be making a sequel. And to make things worse Capcom shut them down due to petty personal arguments. Okamiden was eventually released as a sequel on the DS. I haven't played that to know what its like.

Recettear - A Japanese indie game. A long time ago two guys on a game forum decided to go into the game translating business. We followed along as they struggled to find a game company that trusts two nameless losers on a game forum that can bring their game overseas, translate it, then sell it. We followed along as they updated us with information and we followed along as they were looking for people to distribute for them. Then we followed along as they made six figures and a massively successful game. We followed along as they moved across the country to work together in their "office" and bring over new games. This was the game that started it all. And honestly I wouldn't have tried if it wasn't for what was said above. When I first heard about this it was still in translating stages. But when it was finally released I found that it was way better than I could have ever imagined. Its a item shop simulator as well as a dungeon crawler. Its extremely addictive and charmingly fun. If you like dungeon crawling with randomly generated dungeons/monsters than this is the game for you. If you like to play item shop and be a huge asshole to people by overpricing shit then this is also the game for you. Try it out you won't be disappointed. Just don't pay attention to the terrible song in the video.

Rhapsody: A musical adventure - I keep talking about this because well, its really cute and memorable. Its incredibly funny and so cute you'll die from cuteness diabetes overload. The story is about you, a girl called Cornet with a magical horn that when you play it dolls come to life. Anyways you enter a contest where the best girl gets to marry the prince. This is probably the best and funniest scene in the game. During the contest the evil witch Marjorly comes and kidnaps the prince so you're on a quest to rescue and eventually marry the prince. No bitch is going to steal your man from you. The combat is tactical based but its so easy theres basically no point. Your party members consists of the dolls you collect on your adventure. If you level them up long enough in your party there is a cutscene of them reaching an epiphany and leaving your party. There are cutscenes in the game but instead of showing off graphics and stuff its all musical. Yes its a musical adventure so obviously theres a lot of singing, a lot of friendship, and a lot of cuteness. Luckily you can change to japanese so the music itself isn't that bad. Though its still overly cute that you'll have to secretly play incase your roommate you're gay just like watching my little ponies. It was rereleased on the nintendo DS.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Ok the trailer looks like shit but what do you expect from a game this old? The graphics are not that great compared to today's games but the atmosphere is still there. You feel like its really downtown LA or Santa Monica. Incredibly well designed. The gameplay is a third person stealth RPG. You're a vampire you can't let people know your a vampire or you break the masquerade. Break it enough and you get hunted down by vampire hunters or your fellow vampires. Its basically a secret society and a power struggle for control of the cities. Combat consists of stealthing around or just running in with all sorts of weapons like knives, steel pipes, guns, flame throwers, your hands. You'll fight humans, vampires, and other supernatural beings. The most fun about this game is the side quests and the ability to explore. The characters you meet are all unique and they all have their own distinct personality and quirks. The dungeon designs are generally good, with the exception of the asshole sewer level. Its a very well made RPG and even to this day there are many people still playing this. Too bad though, the company went bankrupt while making this game so it was never really completed. A lot of stuff was cut from the game including additional endings and different clan quests/skills.

This is getting too long and I'm getting bored typing about stuff thats good. Usually I type everything out while in a rage after I'm done a game so things just fly by. There are more games like Mass Effect, Bioshock etc etc but theres really no need to say more. These examples are enough of some nice games. If you're bitching that I have nothing good to say about games then try one of these.

DRM and Piracy

Remember the good old days where all you had was a cd-key or even one of those "enter the password on row and whatever column" to play? Nowadays people are going lunatic over the idea that their shit is getting pirated that they put in retarded DRMs to stop pirates. Newsflash, pirates don't have problems getting past the DRM. Its the people who buy it that suffer. Really when has there been a game that DRM worked in stopping pirating? Answer is none. The only people who suffer from this is the people they want. The actual paying customers.

Pirates aren't hurting sales as much as big game companies like to believe. You always hear them bitch and moan that 60% of their "potential" sales or even upwards to 90% of them were lost to piracy. No. It didn't. If they couldn't pirate they wouldn't play it. End of story. Would you rather people not play your game at all? Probably out of spite. But even pirates, if they never paid for your games, can give positive word of mouth and spread the game more. Yet if you made a game which is unplayable unless you pirate it then the people who would actually buy it wouldn't. You'll lose more. Obviously this isn't how it works but this is what I personally feel. Pirates don't like spending money. Lets face it, they wouldn't pirate if they had the money to throw on these games. Especially when you have no idea if a game was good or bad. Yeah people say you can watch videos online and/or read reviews, but those are biased to shit. Companies pay money to have them give a good review. EA themselves say review sites get bonuses if the game rating was 8.0 or higher. Put a demo out, if people like it they'd buy it. Look at Recettear, a nameless indie game on steam. They put out a demo people flocked to play it found it was amazingly addictive and spread the news. Turned out they had massive sales on the game. And it was easy to pirate as well as having no DRM. Google it and you can pirate it. They didn't have some kind of retarded DRM where you get penalized for being a good gamer.

A good article that I agree with is here.

They point out a lot of good things. You'll have to ask yourself. Why are there so many pirated copies of games. Is it because they're out of control? No, almost all games share the same amount of pirates. Some get pirated more some less, but in the end they wouldn't have bought your game anyways even if they can't pirate. Maybe because your game sucks? Maybe because they're boycotting your DRM? Maybe because a better game of the same kind is out on the market? There are a ton of variables yet the one that gets blamed the most is piracy. There is an example, in Witcher 2. They said they weren't going to put in any kind of DRM. When the game was shipped they added in DRM saying, it wasn't going to hurt the game if it was we wouldn't use it. In the end people were getting 10-30% less fps and other annoying issues because of this. What did CD Project Red do? Honored what they said and removed it.

"CD Projekt’s approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version. This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services.

We felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users.”

Isn't that the best way to counter piracy? People nowadays wants games, and they want it now. If it was easy to download a game at a click of a button then more people would do it. Look at something like iTunes. In a click of a button you can download music. They're making money so obviously music pirating isn't killing them. People are lazy if you can find a way to make it easier to play than to pirate then it might lessen the piracy rate. I'm sure its not that easy but at least its an attempt at a better solution. Look at Steam. Its easy to use, it organizes all your games and you can download it at will without having to go to a torrent site with billions of leechers slowing the torrent down to shit to download and then crack it. It zooms fast, it auto patches, and it does everything for you. Digital distribution is the future of game distribution.

Bottom line is stop making your game suck. Game developers hate making games on the PC because of the fear of piracy. Consoles get games pirated all the time too. Sure not as much as the PC but its still there. They claim they don't get enough profit from PC because of piracy. No dipshits. Its not piracy its because of all the stupid little things you do.

Things like these.

Recently though, everyone seems to be jumping onto the Always Online bandwagon. If your internet has a hiccup you get kicked from the game. Even in offline single player mode. Too bad, get better internet. Is this necessary? Blizzard's SC2 did it. Yet soon after its release, single player offline mode was cracked and people could pirate it. Guess that didn't help after all. Its less of a pain to just crack your legit copies of the games so you can play offline to save yourself the hassle. People are crying that D3 wouldn't have offline mode but I would have to agree with blizzard on this one. D3 plays more like an MMO. Like WOW it would be a better game online. You're missing out on so much of the game playing single player. Rather than making a single player mode they should just focus on the multiplayer aspect of the game. You can't play WOW offline, neither should D3. But for games that only have single player and be forced to be "always online" then its bullshit. Theres no way to justify that except they're paranoid of pirates.

Thats it. That the root of the problem. Paranoia. Because of this gigantic "fear" of pirates, PC games will forever be shittier than their console counterparts. It will always treat the buyer as a criminal. And it will always be the same. Nothing will change. Pirate are out there they're unstoppable. Its as easy going to piratebay and typing in a name of a game. When Piratebay was sued what happened? Nothing. Nothing at all. Even if they die, theres a million other torrent sites where you can pirate shit. When Napster was shut down did that stop music pirating? No. Its not going to stop them now its not going to stop them ever.

Developers needs to stop using piracy as a scapegoat for their shitty games. If it sucks its not because of pirates, its because your game sucks. Stop blaming pirates. Every game has their share of pirates. And if we finally get to the point where we have a way to stop pirates then you'll find something else to blame it on. When you release a game go, is this game worth 60 bucks? Is there a way where people would know if this game is good or not? Chances are if its not a AAA title or a franchise series then people won't know. Thats why you have to give out demos. Put some gameplay videos anything. Holy shit I don't get why games don't do this. You get a significantly higher % of buyers with a demo than without. Unless you are so unconfident that you assume your game sucks horse balls and you hope that people will stupidly blind buy your game and find out its a piece of shit you barely spent time on because you had to rush it out before the next WoW title came out so they'll buy yours instead of the WoW expansion. Oh wait a lot of games already did that. Guess what? They failed. First impressions are lasting impressions. Spend some time on a demo and its going to make people want to buy your shit.

"One new idea a year..."

So there's a game company out there that has been shamelessly and blatantly copying popular game concepts games for their own sale and distribution. Bet you can't guess what country this developer belongs to. China? South Korea? Russia?

It's France.
Wait what? Yep! A French company, Gameloft, has been replicating popular PC/console titles on mobile devices, such as Android and iPhone. It's copied Gran Turismo (GT), Midnight Club (Asphalt), World of Warcraft (Order and Chaos Online), Halo (NOVA), Assassins Creed (they ported AC, but they also released Backstab), Sunset Riders (Cowboys and Aliens), Uncharted (Shadow Guardian), God of War (Hero of Sparta), GTA4 (Gangsta: Miami Vindication), and Starcraft (Starfront). And that's just for Android!

Hard to believe that they've cloned some of these games on the phone... But just look: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gameloft.android.ANMP.GloftMMHM

That's nearly 1:1 identical to WoW. How they don't have lawsuits crash onto their ass like a ton of bricks, I don't know. Of course, we've seen shameless game copying before, so why would I talk about it now?

Well, there have been many before me to call Gameloft a copycat, and their CEO has actually responded.

"The video game industry has always played around a limited number of themes. There is maybe one new idea a year. If a type of game is not available, then you should make it. The damaging thing is if you do a bad expression of a good idea."
- Michel Guillemot

Bold statement, buddy. Even if Guillemot's claim of a singular unique idea per year was true, that is not a flattering situation. Nor is it an excuse. It makes us wonder what is happening in the game industry that is causing this stagnation of ideas. Could it be in part that upper management like Guillemot himself is too focused on mimicking popular titles rather than reaching out with daring concepts, leading game designers to hesitate when proposing and promoting new game concepts like back in the gaming golden age of the late 80's and 90's? Could it be that Guillemot is right about the lack of ideas, but yet ironically he is the plague that is pervading it?

Guillemot is a disgusting worm. He's not just copying to make a quick buck like some Asian game developers do... But he doesn't even think it's copying or setting back the development of the industry and propagating more development studios with FEWER original ideas. In fact, his narcissism allows him to believe that he's doing us a favor by paying homage to leading titles. You have to be pretty twisted to say that.