Dissidia Final Fantasy NT beta

Two weekends ago I saw that there was an open beta being held for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT and I decided to give it a try. I’d never played a Dissidia game before, but I had seen and read things about them, so I knew the basic concept of the games and the beta seemed like a good opportunity to see if I’d actually like playing them. After downloading the beta I spent about an hour messing around with the game and today I’m giving some thoughts on my brief experience with it.

Late to the Party - Bound

Hello everyone, and welcome to Late to the Party, a series in which I discuss video games that I’ve finally got around to playing. As much as I enjoy games, it's rare for me to play them right when they are first released. Normally it takes me a anywhere from a few months to a few years to get around to playing to a game, and because of this I've got a considerable backlog of games that I've been meaning to play. From time to time I’m able to chip away at that backlog and whenever I do so I like to write about it in this series. Today I’m going to tell you about Bound, a surreal 3D platformer. This discussion might contain some minor spoilers but not anything too big.

Improving Mass Effect 3 - The No Budget Option

While I was proofreading last week’s two writing pieces on improving Mass Effect 3, I realized there was in fact a third option for changing the game. This method would require no budget at all, aside from whatever it costs to have an intern write and publish a single sentence online. I call this the No Budget Option. To improve Mass Effect 3 for practically no money, all developer Bioware would have to do is confirm the Indoctrination Theory.

Improving Mass Effect 3 - The High Budget Option

SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3 IN THIS POST

Improving Mass Effect 3 - The Low Budget Option

SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3 IN THIS POST

Replaying the Classics - Mass Effect 3

In May of this year I began this series Replaying the Classics by replaying Mass Effect 2. Immediately thereafter I was confronted by the question of whether or not I would also replay Mass Effect 3. I kind of wanted to, but it would have been a substantial time commitment and there were quite a few other games that I felt a stronger desire to replay, so I put it to the side. As I got closer to my departure for Asia it became clear that I wouldn’t have time to complete it before leaving and as I published the Vanquish edition of Replaying the Classics in August it looked like it just wasn’t going to happen. When I got back from Asia, however, I started to feel this urge to replay Mass Effect 3, like I had an obligation to do so. Somehow I needed to replay this game before I could move forward and start playing games that had come out more recently. Leaving it behind was no longer an option. Thus I fired up the PS3 and began my ascent of the final mountain in this first season of Replaying the Classics. If you’ve not read my Replaying the Classics entry on Mass Effect 2 I highly recommend doing so before going any further, but if you’re up to date then let’s take a seat in our comfy chairs one more time while I tell you about Mass Effect 3.

I’ve upgraded to the PS4 Pro

Back in June of this year I wrote about how I was thinking of upgrading from my PS4 to a PS4 Pro. This month I finally pulled the trigger and made the purchase. It took me awhile to get around to backing up my data from the PS4 and transferring it over to the PS4 Pro, but it’s done now and I stand ready to get back into serious gaming sometime after I return to Colorado. True, I still don’t have a 4K HDR TV yet, which I’ll need to truly experience all that the PS4 Pro has to offer, but my plan is to buy one at some point in the first half of 2018. When that day comes I’ll have another tech milestone to commemorate.

Video Game Prices

The standard new-release price of AAA video games in America has been stuck at $60.00 for over a decade now despite both the increased costs of video game development and the normal process of inflation. Before the start of the PS4/Xbox One/Nintendo Switch console generation I had been wondering if perhaps the price of games would go up to $70.00 but instead they’ve stayed put where they are. As a consumer I like this as it means games are effectively cheaper to buy than they’ve ever been, but as a gamer I’m a little concerned about what this might mean for the industry. Personally I’d be ok with the standard price of AAA games going up to $70.00 to account changes that have happened over the last ten years (and if means a reduction or elimination of microtransactions in AAA games). Another possibility I would be amenable to is a broader spectrum of game prices. Some games like GTA could easily justify a price of $80 or even $100 given the sheer amount of content they deliver, while other smaller games could be released at $30 or $40 or whatever is appropriate.

Re: Do you need to be good at video games to write or talk about them professionally?

You know what? I’m having second thoughts about last Friday’s post and I take back the part about having an affinity for games to discuss them professionally. You don’t need to be a gamer or even like video games to say something about them. If there’s anything we’ve learned from Anita Sarkeesian it’s that you can be a charlatan peddling half-truths and still professionally talk about video games.

In fact, you don’t even have to be good at writing or talking to discuss games, or have meaningful or coherent thoughts on them. Heck, look at what I do on this website!

Do you need to be good at video games to write or talk about them professionally?

That’s a question that’s existed in the background for a long time in the video games world. Earlier this year the question was brought back to the forefront by events surrounding the game Cuphead. In particular, a viral video of a games journalist having a very hard time completing Cuphead’s tutorial reinvigorated the debate over the relationship between a person’s skill in gaming and their ability to speak about it on a professional level. Like so many other things I write about, I’m late to this party and it’s no longer a hot topic, but I’ve been wanting to publish my own opinion on it since the most recent ruckus erupted and now I’m finally getting around to it.

Do you need to be good at video games to write or talk about them professionally? My answer to that question is no, and let me explain my line of thinking on this. In my opinion you don’t need to be good at video games to write or talk about them professionally, you just need to have an affinity for gaming and be good at writing or talking. You might not be good at specific genres of video games, or even video games in general, but if you’re passionate about them, have something worthwhile to say, and are able to communicate your message well then by all means I would think that you can discuss video games professionally. One of my favorite gaming personalities summed up a lot of my thoughts earlier this month with the tweet below:

But wait, what if you’re really bad at video games, to the point where you have difficulty finishing a game of average difficulty? Even then I would say that you could still write or talk about video games, though you might be more limited in what you can discuss. Perhaps you got stuck at a certain point in a game and couldn’t finish it. In that case you can write or talk about what you experienced—just be up front and honest about not getting to the end. Obviously you couldn’t give a game a comprehensive review, but you could still have something meaningful to say about the chunk of the game you completed. If it’s interesting, then put your thoughts out there and don’t worry about your relative skill in gaming.

The Collapse of NeoGaf

Yesterday I wrote about the torrent of sexual misconduct allegations that rushed through the gaming community and took down many people. One of those persons was Tyler Malka, the owner of NeoGaf. I might have visited NeoGaf once, but otherwise I avoided it like the plague due to its reputation for spewing forth some of the most vile and vitriolic online behavior in the gaming world. NeoGaf collapsed not long after Tyler Malka was accused of sexual assault, which is notable due to his supposed commitment to stamping out misogyny in gaming, and normally I’d let the death of a website go without comment but for NeoGaf I make an exception. Seeing a place as contemptible as NeoGaf go up in flames was undeniably satisfying. True, there will always be hate and harassment online, and the remnants of NeoGaf have started a new website that might turn out to be even worse than NeoGaf, but for once we got to see a bastion of wickedness destroyed.

Male Feminist Allies (and Gamergate)

Author’s Note: Apologies in advance for the memes. I realize some might see them as mean but I find them rather fitting in the context of today’s post.

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The same wildfire of sexual harassment and assault allegations that blazed through Hollywood and Washington also scorched the gaming world. A fast, sudden torrent of accusations saw a number of persons in the gaming community forced out of their jobs or livelihoods and ushered into the status of social pariahs. The hits just kept coming, and there was even a period of about two weeks where it seemed that not a single day went by without at least one person being exposed for their sexual misdeeds.

Being on vacation in Asia during peak accusation season, I wasn’t able to keep up with events as much as I would have liked, but there was one thing that really stood out to me as I tried to follow along via Twitter. I couldn’t help but notice the sheer number of Males Feminist Allies and members of the anti-Gamergate community who were being accused. Men who had spent years virtue signaling their commitment to uplifting women and proclaiming the misogyny of Gamergate were now being exposed as sex predators. As several Internet commentators put it, the witch hunters had become witches, hunted. Day after day, more and more of them were outed, and soon I was waking up each morning wondering who was the latest target of accusations. Perhaps the most incredible thing to watch during the whole season of allegations was how proponents of the “listen and believe” movement were trying to make exceptions for themselves and their friends when they were the ones being accused of sexual misconduct. The very monster they had been feeding was now eating them alive. Had there not been terrible misdeeds committed that were leading to all these accusations it would have been funny in a really messed up way to watch the massacre.

It’s been a few weeks since I noticed any big accusations in the gaming world, so perhaps the storm is over, for now. Should another one blow up, however, I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll see more “allies” revealed not to be allies at all.

Uncharted 4 Survival Mode

With all the stress of work and travel preparations I have found gaming to be an even more welcome diversion than usual lately. The trouble has been that I’ve been feeling like playing something new, but I committed myself to not start any new games until after I get back from Asia. Thankfully Uncharted 4 had me covered and solved my little conundrum by giving me a new experience in a game I’d already played. Earlier this year Uncharted 4’s developer Naughty Dog released a new multiplayer cooperative mode called Survival, in which three players have to survive waves of enemies, sometimes while completing particular tasks and sometimes with special modifiers to the gameplay. I had never tried out Survival Mode up until now, but that clearly was a mistake because I’m really digging it. In fact, I had to pull myself away from Survival Mode last Saturday because I was going overboard and spending too much time on it. I wish I had tried out Survival mode earlier and had more time to play it, but I suppose it’s better to be late than to never show up at all.

Replaying the Classics - Vanquish

As a gaming enthusiast I’m always interested in new gaming experiences, but every once in awhile I feel compelled to go back and put in some serious time replaying some of my favorite games from the preceding years. In that spirit, I have created a new series of writing pieces titled Replaying the Classics, wherein I discuss the games that I have replayed recently. Unlike my Late to the Party series, my goal with these writing pieces is not so much to give a strong analysis of a particular game, but rather to give an informal recounting of a game and to try to convey to the reader why it’s one of my favorites. I do not come to you this time as a game reviewer, but merely as a friend wanting to have a casual chat about what he’s been playing. Today, let’s take a seat in our comfy chairs and talk about Vanquish.

Replaying the Classics - Journey

As a gaming enthusiast I’m always interested in new gaming experiences, but every once in awhile I feel compelled to go back and put in some serious time replaying some of my favorite games from the preceding years. In that spirit, I have created a new series of writing pieces titled Replaying the Classics, wherein I discuss the games that I have replayed recently. Unlike my Late to the Party series, my goal with these writing pieces is not so much to give a strong analysis of a particular game, but rather to give an informal recounting of a game and to try to convey to the reader why it’s one of my favorites. I do not come to you this time as a game reviewer, but merely as a friend wanting to have a casual chat about what he’s been playing. Today, let’s take a seat in our comfy chairs and talk about Journey.

Reaffirming my choices

Over the past two or three months I’ve been slowly replaying Uncharted 4 with a friend of mine. Uncharted 4, as you might remember, I chose as my Game of the Year for 2017 and it currently sits at the top of the list of my Top 10 Games of the PS4/Xbox One console generation. Last Friday my friend and I finally finished Uncharted 4. As the credits began to roll, any second thoughts or doubts I’d been having about giving Uncharted 4 both of those distinctions were put to rest. It truly is a game on a level that few others can match. Uncharted 4 is nothing short of a 10/10 masterpiece.

Destiny 2 Beta Recap

This past weekend the Destiny 2 public beta was available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. I unfortunately had to work that weekend, so I didn’t get in anywhere near as much time with the beta as I would have liked, but I did play enough to give a basic report on it and some thoughts on my experience. Enjoy.

The Destiny 2 Public Beta Starts Today

The public beta for one of my most anticipated games of this year begins today for people like me who haven’t preordered the game (people who preordered got to start a few days ago). Until Sunday night I’ll have the opportunity to get a taste of what Destiny 2 will be like and hopefully my gameplay will in someway help improve the final product. During my time playing the game I’ll try to grab some screenshots and gameplay clips, and at some point next week I intend to publish a writing piece detailing my thoughts on what I experienced. If you’re on PSN and you see player named Attila_The_Pug running around, (and probably getting destroyed in multiplayer) that’s me.

Kingdom Hearts 3 coming in 2018

At this year’s D23 Expo we got a new trailers for Kingdom Hearts 3, a game that I’ve been waiting for since my college days in the mid-2000s. New gameplay footage was shown, in addition to the reveal that the world of Toy Story would be one of the locations visited in the game. At the end of the trailer was an announcement that Kingdom Hearts 3 will be released in 2018. If that date sticks then when Kingdom Hearts 3 is released it will have been five years after its initial announcement and thirteen years since Kingdom Hearts 2 came out. While I consider myself to be something of a Kingdom Hearts fan and I’m certainly looking forward to playing Kingdom Hearts 3, with how long I’ve been waiting for this game part of me just won’t believe it’s really coming out until I hold the game disc in my hands. It’s been a long, agonizing wait for Kingdom Hearts 3, but on the plus side I suppose I should at least be thankful that the game is real and will one day be released. Half Life fans aren’t so lucky.

Replaying the Classics - Thomas Was Alone

As a gaming enthusiast I’m always interested in new gaming experiences, but every once in awhile I feel compelled to go back and put in some serious time replaying some of my favorite games from the preceding years. In that spirit, I have created a new series of writing pieces titled Replaying the Classics, wherein I discuss the games that I have replayed recently. Unlike my Late to the Party series, my goal with these writing pieces is not so much to give a strong analysis of a particular game, but rather to give an informal recounting of a game and to try to convey to the reader why it’s one of my favorites. I do not come to you this time as a game reviewer, but merely as a friend wanting to have a casual chat about what he’s been playing. Today, let’s take a seat in our comfy chairs and talk about Thomas Was Alone.