On the Radar - Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor

As much as it pains me to admit this, since I'm sure some circles would call for my head and/or my nerd card, I'm just not really a fan of Lord of the Rings.  I've tried several times over with the movies and the games and perhaps that's the problem, in that I've never tried the books, but it has just never worked out.  I tried watching Fellowship three times and fell asleep all three times, twice for Two Towers and I saw Return of the King in the theater, so I didn't fall asleep then.  The film, however, did stop about 2/3rds of the way through for about 10-15 minutes, though, so maybe it's a sign.  Perhaps it's just not for me, as they say.  It's a thing that happens sometimes.  So when I heard tell of a new Lord of the Rings game coming out, I didn't pay it much mind, even when there was a bit of controversy over some of the animations used in the alpha footage.

All that said, however, it wasn't until I saw a post by Chance on the subject that I decided to give it a look-see and boy am I glad I did.  While I can definitely see where the concerns lay insofar as the Assassin's Creed comparisons, I don't care.  That is because what I see looks astoundingly good, especially for a franchise that I have no particular affection towards.  Of course, it's hard to -not- look good when it cribs from the Darksiders school of thought, by being a Locke's Socks amalgamation of Lord of the Rings and these fantastic games.  Intentional or not, you can pick out the Assassin's Creed, the Arkham Asylum/City, the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and the Hitman bits and inspect them on their own merits, and you can possibly try to determine whether or not it's cool that they are so clearly those bits placed into the stew that is Shadows of Mordor, but it's an easy decision.

When it looks like that?  Yes.  Yes it's cool.

Of course, Shadows of Mordor does bring something incredibly interesting and new to the table in the Nemesis system, which I for one am wary to believe is as fantastic as it's made out to be.  Simply because I cannot comprehend a world in which is does work as flawlessly as indicated just yet.  The Nemesis system claims to be able to randomly create a Nemesis for you that will serve as a major figure in your world that you ultimately want to kill as well as henchmen for that figure.  Not only that, but the Nemesis system promises, much like so many other games do, that all your actions and decisions matter and change the course of your story, causing your Nemesis (Nemeses?) to act accordingly.  The example used is that the player encountered two of the figures in the game early on, left the major figure to burn to death in a fire, but he survived, leaving him with a rather nasty burn, and a mean grudge.  It promises a wealth of opportunities and scenarios unique to every player and it sounds, in a word, amazing.

The cynic in me just cannot believe this is possible.  The cynic in me understands that, if you're using voiced lines, there can only really be so many instances of situations possible, since the lines have to be recorded for them all.  And the cynic in me believes that it's something that will offer less 'endless possibilities' and more 'scenarios created by creative gating' which is merely a series of binary yes/no options that are little more than littered along a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style path.  On the path in the trailer, there was a choice where the player apparently did -something- that left his Nemesis with a massive burn on his face.  That choice is a gate that takes you to a certain path in which X and Y happens.  While it gets a bit more impressive when X and Y are influenced by A, B and C or what have you, it's all something that you can see the workings of.  Depending on how many 'paths' and 'gates' they actually include in the game...it's quite possible that this 'unique experience' will not be that at all for most, which would be unfortunate and the exact thing I -don't- hope for.

I don't really like the cynic in me.  While I can see all that logic and such, I don't want to, because 'player choice affecting world-building' is something that I'm always a fan of, though few games pull it off as well as some shining examples which is an absolute shame.  It's a hard thing to pull off, I'm aware, because it's stacking variable upon variable, but it's so worth it if it actually works.  It's for that reason alone (well, the genre-blending helps) that I'm looking forward to Shadows of Mordor now, and I eagerly await some more trailers that show off the Nemesis system more - hopefully showing different ways entire scenarios can carry out or something along those lines.  Mostly just because I want to believe they can pull this off.

really, I'm just drooling at the potential to do a fictionalization of my playthrough of the game because it would be so good

Bad/Dumb News Dump

There've been a lot of little bits of news here and there that fit the exact formula for a News Dump post - not enough of a thing that I can go on and on for a full post about it, but significant enough that I have to say -something- about it.  As luck(?) would have it, they also all have a fairly negative connotation to them, whether it's due to being unfortunate in the worst degree, or due to including a massive amount of what is colloquially referred to as 'dumb'.  While I'm admittedly a bit remiss to include the two together, it fits a theme and I like themes.  Everybody likes themes, actually.  So everyone should be fine with me condensing as I'm doing.

The first bit of news is the one that hits me the hardest.  While I'm not directly affected by it, it still hurts because it's a shitty, unfortunate situation and one that doesn't need to exist.  Rune Factory 4, which we've enjoyed in the states for a while now, was slated for a late release in Europe (like most 3DS games) and it was recently announced that it's actually not going to happen.  Without really listing a reason, Marvelous AQL Europe announced that their plans to bring the game to PAL-land have been canceled and they hope you look forward to more announcements on new titles (that may or may not actually see a release and if they do, you probably don't want them).  On just about any platform but the 3DS, this would be regrettable, but not -completely- irredeemable.  However, since the Region Lock thing persists on the 3DS (I'm not sure if it's something that can just be disabled, of course, probably not) it means that Europeans really have no means of playing Rune Factory 4 unless they also import a North American 3DS.

One has to wonder if this has anything to do with the shuttering of Neverland and the shaky future that the Rune Factory series seemed to have because of it.  This is certainly not a welcome follow-up to that case if it's connected (it would almost have to be, I think) and I can't help but just wonder about the future of Rune Factory all over again.  It's basically my favorite version of Harvest Moon now with the absolute abundance of things to do, and I really just want it to continue, since I know there'll apparently -always- be Harvest Moon games regardless.  I want to have both, basically.  Though, I'm sure Europe wants the same as well, and it just remains to be seen how things are going to go in the near future here.

If you've paid attention to the Mobile Games scene for the last few months, or hell, even just watched TV, there's a good chance you've heard of Candy Crush Saga.  It's sort of risen up as the second coming of Angry Birds in that sort of "Why do people actually like this game?" way.  It's essentially a Bejeweled clone with some different mechanics from what I've seen, and from that base, they've branched out into other games genres to spawn other games that make liberal use of the word "saga" (Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, etc.) which is kind of the problem here.  Or, rather, half of the problem.  You see King, the developer of the Saga games, has decided to file a trademark for the words "Candy" for use on pretty much everything (games, clothing, etc.) and "Saga" for games primarily.  Even stranger is the fact that the application for "Candy" was approved.

Now, a trademark is not a patent, which is the thing people make money off of.  This is a point of contention that seems to be going around the internet, because people seem to think that King did this so they can extort royalties from everything else that dares use "Candy" in its title.  That's most certainly not the case, and even if it were, I'm sure Hasbro would have a very stern something to say to them about that  But it's okay!  King went on record saying that they 'will not enforce against all uses', just the ones that are clearly infringing on their branding and/or game.  Which is fine and all until you realize that they're not allowed to do that.  Trademark law requires that you -fight- to keep your trademark since it's clearly an important part of your business strategy in that case and allowing it to be infringed upon cheapens it and weakens your claim.  So....basically don't expect them to hold it for very long.

Now, about them 'not enforcing against all uses' where "Candy" is concerned, apparently nobody got that memo for "Saga", because they've requested legal action against Stoic for The Banner Saga.  The Banner Saga is a game that was Kickstarted for the PC and Mac, with other platforms in the works potentially (hopefully) including the Playstation Vita.  The Banner Saga is also not a game that has anything to do with King's works in anyway - there's no overlap because King works in the mobile space - and their complaint -solely- rests on the fact that their games entirely end with "Saga" and so does "The Banner Saga".  This is a -classic- Trademark infringement case, harkening back to the Scrolls debacle between Bethesda and Mojang where Bethesda had the absolute gall to actually request recompense as well.  As the 'Saga' trademark has not been approved, it's hard to say what the hell King is thinking at this point, but I can't foresee them getting away with this one.

Finishing up tonight's festivities is another heaping scoop of 'dumb' involving Alienware and the phenomenon known as a "Steam Machine".  Steam Machines are something that are still mostly nebulous in concept for me, in that I'm still hazy on how it proves to be a stand-alone box when a majority of its games (at the start at least) will have to be streamed through your Machine by your PC, thus only really granting the 'Living Room Experience' (take a shot) which can already be achieved with a normal PC and Big Picture mode.  But even I know that the main strength of the Steam Machine is its ability to meld the set specs and development consideration of a Console with the ability to be upgraded and customized as a PC.  I'm pretty sure -everyone- knows that, that that's pretty much the entire point of the machine.

Everyone except Alienware, apparently.  I'm, uh...I'm just going to quote this here.

"Lifecycle wise, consoles update every five, six, seven years. We will be updating our Steam Machines every year," Azor said.

There will be no customization options in Alienware's Steam Machines, Azor continued: "You can't really update it." Customers will have small range of configurations to choose from, such as more memory or a faster CPU, he said. Those who want to beef up their machines on their own are better off with a standard PC, Azor noted – after all, anyone can turn a PC into a Steam Machine by buying a Steam Controller and downloading SteamOS.

"If you actually want to customize your Alienware Steam Machine, maybe change your graphics card out or put in a new CPU, you would be better off with the standard Alienware X51. This particular product is restricted in its upgrade options."

This is honestly a little impressive because this is a scenario I never would have imagined possible.  It's something that shouldn't exist in nature.  You see, there's missing a point entirely, and then there is this, which grossly misinterprets every ideal that a product is supposed to espouse and it manages to appear as the sacrificial lamb to encourage you to simply buy their other products instead.  It's astounding.  It has astounded me.  I am properly astounded.

Yearly refreshes, non-customizable and spoken of as an inferior product by reference.  (Because seriously, 'if you want to mess around with it, just buy a PC' is not saying anything positive for this thing)  That's the triple play right there.  The Triple Play of "Who in the fuck taught you PR?"  I just....don't even know what else to say about that one.

this post was brought to you by the letter 'duuuurrrrrrrrrr'

Wild Season, Eh?

I've always been a little wary on most things where Kickstarter is concerned since the whole premise can lead to some real issues on a large scale.  It's more or less a house of cards where everyone brings their own cards to someone who says they can make an awesome castle with them, and then you just have to kind of wait and see if they do, indeed, make an awesome castle out of cards that you and everyone else gave to them.  Not everyone can build awesome card castles.  Many people will tell you they can do so, when in reality they cannot.  Some attempt to, but realize they need more cards because whoops, these cards will only make like one card rampart and okay, I'm losing the plot here.  Point is, it's hard to get excited for Kickstarters unless they're being made by people who can be held to a great amount of scrutiny (I.E. known quantities like Comcept and the like) because there's at least an idea of -something- coming from it, rather than that dude just taking the cards and going to play poker with them instead.

However, when I see a project that wants to be another type of Harvest Moon game, rather than a third-person/first-person shooter of some sort, I have to take note.  And when I see a project that aims to be on the Vita, well, I have to take note.  When those two aims intersect, that, my friends, is when I have to inform you about it, because it's something that requires a bit of attention.  I only regret that my attention was not drawn to this earlier, because I'm not sure what, if any impact my attention will offer at this point.

I say this because Wild Season only has five days left in the Kickstarter at this point, and it's probably the worst five days anyone could imagine having at this point, with Christmas rolling over and the like.  It's hard to say whether or not people -have- money to give at this point, and as we know, with Kickstarter if you don't get the funding goal by the deadline, you get nothing but a bit of exposure and goodwill.  It's also something like £4,000 short of its goal, which will be hard to make up in those few days.  They always say the bulk of funding surges happen at the start and at the end of a Kickstarter, so there's hope, and I definitely want to hope because I do want these guys to succeed.  If only so I can hope they go forward with bringing it to the Playstation Family so I finally have a damn Harvest Moon-like game on my Vita.

So why should you care about Wild Season?  Well, as stated, it's a Harvest Moon-like game, though it does quite a bit differently in the formula alone, and it does have some rather interesting elements to it.  For one, it promises something of a 'darker' underlying story, primarily about a 'Secret' the Town holds, and that's kind of neat on its own merits, provided it doesn't put the game on a 'timer'.  Relationships are also much different if just for the fact that you can accrue enemies now instead of being everyone's friend automatically.  Befriending others and getting into relationships (You can be in same-sex relationships, by the way, that's a big deal) takes a more delicate touch as well, as you can be branded 'Creepy' or 'a stalker' for doing things that are notoriously ungoverned in Harvest Moon and Rune Factory.  Bursting into a character's room without permission, for one - especially if you decide that's a great time to stumble over to that person and hand them a gift.  I would be a little weirded out myself.

Characters are also meant to be a little more three-dimensional than the standard HM characters who, while they have their issues, are generally built around one or two little things and thus feel a bit flat.  Wild Season's cast promises to have a little more depth, boasting actual issues and problems that aren't things you can deal with with one little chat or anything quite so easy.  You'll also be able to run for office and personally dictate parts of the town, though what extent of power you'll actually be granted is left to be seen.  You'll even be able to see technology slowly introduced into the town - HM games tend to be a little technology-adverse unless it's Innocent Life, but that barely counts.  All of those things, plus a wider selection of things to do when you have nothing pressing at the moment ensures that it'll be a very different game from what you might expect, and that's enticing.

I have a few misgivings however.  I'm not quite sure how much content can actually be present in the game considering iOS and Android are two of the confirmed platforms, but I suppose mobile games have been getting bigger and bigger (and contain large games now, like Final Fantasy Tactics: WotL and The World Ends With You) so it shouldn't be an issue.  I'm also a little....wary of them showing off the obtrusive mobile controls while the game version is clearly the PC one being played for the video.  Virtual Controllers are things that I'm not too enthused about and while I'll never have to use one, I just wish they could have shown the footage without it for now.  I'm also swinging back and forth on the art style and haven't quite decided which side of the fence I'm on with regards to that.  It's...honestly pretty good, but I'm just never up on Chibi characters.  However, I imagine I'll get over that.

So yeah.  As stated (and shown in the video), the game is being set or PC/Mac/Linux and Mobile platforms, but if they can, they would like to embrace Sony and Nintendo's indie strategies for Vita (and probs PS3/4) releases alongside the Wii U.  Harvest Moon-like games are, of course, better as portable titles since they're the type of game you'll want to be able to jump right into and play for a moment, especially when you've got a few minutes to kill between commutes or something along those lines.  Thus, I'm hoping for this to succeed and for a Vita version to materialize because it's...honestly probably the best fit of them all.  With any luck, they'll get that last push to fund them, but even if they don't, hopefully they'll have some sort of backup plan.  Hell, they can always try to contact Shahid Kamal, since he is without a doubt an awesome dude and definitely not titled "The Indie Guru" (among other titles) for nothing.

I'm personally curious as to just how weird the game is going to get, because the potential for weird, creepy shit is off the charts

Some Encouraging Project Spark News

It seems that Project Spark, Microsoft's game-building game, will not require XBox Live Gold to play in any of its versions on the 360, PC or XBone.  Seeing as that is a Microsoft Studio title, as first-party as can be, that's quite a surprising development, but not an unwelcome one.  It also makes a lot of sense to do which I posit is most of why it's surprising.  Despite me being a little disappointed in Project Spark, or what little of it has been shown off, I'm still nonetheless interested in it, especially now that the XBone left Crazytown and is a viable, purchasable console now.  Because I am just a whore for the concept of creating things even though I'm terrible at actually executing the creation thereof.

Of course, that's kind of where the rub is - everything points to being able to play Project Spark without XBox Live Gold.  Semantics are a wonderful, terrible thing, of course, so one could actually infer that silver members can only do that - play the game.  Play other creations people have made.  The worry, then, is that you will still need Gold to actually be able to create and share your little games that look suspiciously like Fable even though it's supposed to be set in space or something.  It would certainly make sense, since it makes -more- sense than Microsoft being cool where it concerns this game.  It's not that we want to be cynical, that we don't want to believe, but, well, I think we've all touched the fire one too many times, and we're pretty sure it's still going to burn.

We're watching you, Microsoft.  Keeping an eye on you in case you go all Crazytown again.

yes, it was a short post but what else is there to say about a game that has like three minutes of footage out there

Steeeeaaaaam.....Machiiiiiiiiineee...

Practically required listening for this post

Last week was a rather fun one with all sorts of Valve announcements rocking the internet and driving all sorts of hype through ceilings.  It was, in fact, a week-long event with three announcements scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Friday to allow for proper amounts of speculation and wonder in between conferences.  Speculation that all revolved around Half-Life 3, of course, due in no small part to the whole three announcements thing, and I'm sure that Valve is acutely aware of that fact.  Those rascals.  As someone who doesn't do the whole PC Gaming thing, all of this was a mere curiosity to me even if I do plan on getting into the scene at some point in the future when I have money to throw into a fairly decent rig (or even a -super- decent one) if only to check out a few odd exclusives here like Recettear and such that have no chance of jumping ship anywhere else.  Still, I can't help but take a look at the announcements and work through them as an outsider, but I'm going to tackle them in a way that...makes a little more sense than the order they picked.

Wednesday's announcement was that The Steam Box is now the Steam Machine and it is real.  Not only that, but they will come in all sorts of shapes and sizes because there are several different hardware manufacturer's that will make their own box, basically, even if they all have the exact same innards to start.  Or...maybe they will.  It's all very vague, if you haven't noticed.  I was originally thinking that there was going to be two different 'builds' or 'tiers' of it - one that acted mostly as a stream-between Box to get your games in Big Picture (and probably optimized a little better) versus a box that just -plays your Steam games-, but it seems like it's more or less going to be an amalgamation of the two.  It's hard to really pin down, however.  The only thing that's confirmed is the former bit about the streaming, but I can't imagine that Valve is going through all this trouble to release a dinky little bridge for people who want to use Big Picture, but can't be assed to...set it up properly through their PC.

How will it do this, you ask?  By using what was announced on Monday - SteamOS.  That's right, a Linux-based Operating System specifically for Steam to help you get all your digital content attached to your Steam account (and things on your normal PC) to your fingertips in one way or another.  Obviously, Steam Machines will run SteamOS natively, but you'll also be able to download it elsewhere if you feel like it; hell, you can probably just make your -own- Steam Machine based off of how open this thing seems to be.  What it's going to do, however, is try its best to optimize the parts for Game performance where a PC generally cannot do that, even a specialized one, because of the overhead from other programs and such.  Being Linux-based, it'll be able to natively run games that support Linux, but as we know that's not -every- game.  Or a good majority of them.  For the games that won't run natively, you can hook it up to your PC and stream the game through your house, but just how much of it all runs on one thing and the other is something that I just can't fathom.  It would be nice if it could just use the Machine's components and Windows' process so that I could actually play the scant few games in my library (assuming they're not Linux-compatible), but that sounds too wonderful to be true.

Finally, there's the question of -how- you will play all of this, which is where Friday's announcement of a Steam Controller comes into play.  This baby (viewable at the top of the page) is built specifically for PC gaming and will be compatible with pretty much every game in the Steam catalog, even (hopefully) games that don't have controller support cooked into them.  Of course, even knowing and seeing the controller, the issue remains of -how- you're going to play it....because the controller looks very, very unwieldy to me.  The trackpads stand out first thing, of course, but there are apparently people who've played with them already and said they work quite well, much to my disbelief.  What bothers me, however, is the placement of the face buttons, because they just seem so...weird.  Even the beta models of the controller have them taking up the touch-screen area as large keys, and that seems just as bad.  Hopefully it plays a little more intuitively than it looks, however.

The long and short of it, however, is that with those three announcements, Valve has more or less officially thrown their hat into the ring.  It's not a complete thing, as their investment is basically just as much at it's been aside from getting hardware makers to make hardware for them and if they have to discontinue them then, well, it's no big loss since a PC basically -is- a Steam Machine already with SteamOS being a thing and the controller being compatible with whatever.  Big Picture mode still exists, so what the Steam Machine/OS seems to be is an attempt to create something cohesive to mold it all together in one package which is a smart move, but you have to wonder if it'll be able to go off as seamlessly as it's arranged to do.  Depending on how many games end up running Linux natively (since I don't plan on hooking one up to this junk heap one way or another) I might just find myself owning one of these things to get my PC gaming fix....which I haven't even really dipped into yet.  But the Zeboyd catalog, Recettear and a few other things are all very tempting and ensure that I'll get into PC stuff, one way or another.

Update!:  So, now we have specs for Steam Machine prototypes.

The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components:
GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660
CPU: some boxes with Intel : i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB DDR5 (GPU)
Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD
Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold
Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

As we all know, that is a bunch of gibberish to me, but consensus from conversations about it that others have had seems to suggest that this....this is all very bad.  By virtue of being disgustingly good.  Because it will cost a lot of money, you see.  Like a lot.

really though, who -isn't- going to get the clip of the lyric and make their machine boot with that

Nosgoth Officially Revealed, Looks Terrible

...

....sigh.

Fucking hell.

Nosgoth was rumored and then confirmed a while ago, and I posited the worst-case scenarios for what it could've been.  Me.  The guy who is terrible at predictions.  The guy who is almost proven wrong constantly when doing this kind of thing.  So lo and behold, I got this one right and yes, it's as miserable of a feeling as you might imagine.  Everything I see about this game screams MOBA even if it isn't the typical DOTA set-up that so many MOBAs seem to be aping.  Everything I see from that trailer also looks absolutely terrible, and it's honestly really difficult to even consider this world a reality at the moment.  Much less put that into words.

Essentially, Nosgoth takes places during the big time skip between Blood Omen 1 and Soul Reaver 1 in which the world is plunged into chaos because of the fall of the Pillars of Balance and the rising army of vampires against humanity.  And possibly the Hylden too, but they don't seem like they're getting facetime this go around.  Spoiler alert:  The Vampires more or less win.  So, congratulations, Nosgoth is entirely moot before we even -start- things.  Just wanted to throw that out there.  It is basically existing solely on Rule of Cool except it doesn't....contain anything cool within its confines.  It contains things of pain and terror, things that I don't want to comprehend and things that I just don't want to talk about.  But I must.  So let's jump right into that, I suppose.

Nosgoth is being billed as a Tactical/Team-Based Third-Person Action game where you play as either humans or vampires battling against each other.  Humans are ranged-based, focusing on bows and arrows, crossbows, mines...flamethrowers and grenade launchers, you know, normal medieval fare, whereas Vampires are melee-focused, having the ability to get around easier so that they can get right up in a human's face to eat it off.  It....sounds a little unwieldy, and I'm not quite sure how it's going to be balanced, especially when the video seems to suggest that everyone is made of paper.  Though I guess that...is -one- way to do it, I suppose, making everyone super lethal, so that the vampires move a little faster (and can climb buildings and such) to compensate against the humans being able to shoot them from thirty feet away.  I'd say that I'm sure it'll work out somehow, but I'm really not - the game just doesn't look good and the concept ruins any and all chance of me giving it any benefit of the doubt.

I just kind of feel bad for Psyonix, since I imagine they were just saddled with this, and they honestly just don't know what to do with it.  So they fit right in at Squeenix.  Even though it's going to be free-to-play (of course) I'm certainly not going to give it another look after tonight and I'm sure that I'm not alone in that.  Unfortunate, really, since Squeenix will spin the lack of attention towards a conclusion stating that people don't want Legacy of Kain anymore.  That's a fallacy, of course, but it's the way of things.  Not the best way to see off the series in the least which is disappointing but, again, it's just not even surprising given how many dumb decisions Squeenix are capable of making and have made already.  Still, it's nice to know that it's going to be a train-wreck than to just assume it I suppose.

seriously, Squeenix, just what the hell

Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD Announced, Nobody is Surprised

Ubisoft announced quite a few things yesterday, but the one bit that caught my eye was the announcement of Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD, a port of the previously Vita-exclusive game for PS3, 360 and PC.  I guess it shouldn't be surprising, since it was actually a pretty good game and being solely on the Vita wasn't doing Ubisoft any favors, but I can't help feeling like I should be even the tiniest bit angry about this, being the staunch Vita supporter that I am.  I mean, here's one of the few 'mainstream' exclusives worth a damn and that exclusivity (plus being made retroactively the 'shitty' version by comparison) just went out the window.  One of the big things you could point at for just about anyone enticed by the idea of a Vita but needing a tipping point and make jazz hands over, and now not so much.  I -should- be bothered by it.

Clearly, I'm not, though.  I'm not quite sure what it is about Liberation on the whole, but it's effectively in the "Would not play again" portion of my brain and I just don't know why.  Shortly after I reviewed the game, I mentioned having a bit of fatigue over talking about it and it simply turns out that that never really went away.  Even bringing this post up last night as I intended to do it up (instead of finishing it tonight) brought about a strange weariness that, stacked on my everyday exhaustion simply proved to be too much.  That I'm managing tonight is nothing less than a miracle of sorts, or something a little less dramatic if you're into that sort of thing, I suppose.  Still, it's something weird to say the least - it's not often that you'll find a game that I don't want to talk about as with a good game, I can extol its virtues and with a bad game, I can loudly rant about its inadequacies.  Liberation is somewhere in the middle and I really only have one guess as to how it managed that.

I was....not a fan of Liberation's Multi-Player and that's putting it mildly.  To be entirely frank, I think it was an abomination unto common sense, and how it was ever presented as a good idea is foreign to me.  It seemed as if it was designed in the depths of the underbelly of some Zynga sweatshop, and brought before a Ubisoft exec by some mole-person scraping across the ground so as not to offend the sensibilities.  Shaped in a grotesque fashion, it was surely something to be rejected, to be shunned and mocked, but instead, the exec shrugged and presented it as something proper, allowing the caitiff to return to his duties with a rare sense of satisfaction, and undeserved at that.  A lot of pointless clicking and posturing that was all erased as soon as a faction the Assassins won a 'match' where everything was then reset so you could waste time with it yet again.  Somehow, someway, it managed to make its way into the final product that was Assassin's Creed: Liberation, and that is definitely a grievous injustice upon humanity that will hopefully be righted in the future somehow.  I should hope that it's simply stricken from the HD remake, but I highly doubt that it will be so, you know....enjoy that, whoever is going to buy that.

Of course, there are actual improvements being made to the game beyond the obvious of making it prettier to look at, even if it wasn't much of a slouch on the Vita.  Facial animations will be retouched, the frame-rate (that I didn't have much of a problem with, to be honest) will be locked at something proper, gameplay tweeks to combat and free-running and apparently each mission has been tweeked a bit as well.  Joystiq makes mention of new missions, but I don't see any information about it beyond that, though I do recall a few areas in the game where another mission for story-pacing would have been appreciated.  Likely that's the type of thing that will be done....or simply other missions along the Citizen E vein since those are cheap, easy and interesting.  I doubt I'm going to pay much attention to it, however - the chances of the new content coming to Liberation on the Vita, even as paid DLC, is slim and I doubt that I'd pick it up even if it were offered.  I simply have no intention on playing the game ever again.

That's not to say that you shouldn't either, of course.  I stand by my original assessment of "Just as good as any other Assassin's Creed game, for better or worse" because I would also never really go back and play those all over again either.  I tend to finish them off as best as I can (fuck you, Brotherhood and your online bullshit) and then wash my hands of them entirely which...doesn't say a whole lot of my opinion on the franchise as a whole, it would seem.  That's just my opinion and my way of playing it, of course, and seeing as I keep coming back, I must have -something- that I like about it all.  Perhaps some day I'll figure that out.  Maybe after I buy Assassin's Creed 3 for $20 somewhere and play through it despite likely not enjoying what it has to offer if my pattern recognition isn't off.  Or maybe somewhere else along the line!  I kind of mussed up the point - Liberation was pretty cool so I hope the people who can play it now without a Vita (also known as people who are missing out) will enjoy it despite its flaws that every AC game is requisite to have.

I think it's the drop-stab, because that never, ever gets old

Trails in the Sky Second Chapter is Coming, GET FUCKING HYPE

Friends, this is the fucking year to be a gamer.  Well, this year and next year, it seems, but this year for the announcements if nothing else.  I have been constantly surprised (in a good way) by announcements for things this year, and that....that's not stopping, it seems.  Another one of the things that I had mostly given up on long ago has been announced today and I could not be happier unless there were more overwhelmingly positive things that happened today, but this is good too.  Another one of those things that I have said probably isn't ever happening has decided to happen to prove me wrong and that's fine.  That's amazing, even.  I will take that any day of the week.

The long and short of it is that The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter is coming to PSP and PC.  As in the sequel to the game on the PSP that I absolutely adored last year when I played it.  As in the game that continued the wonderful story from First Chapter that got so amazingly good at the end and made me froth at the mouth for a chance to get to play and experience it.  Basically the sequel to one of the RPGs that has nestled in my heart in that little spot reserved for "Favorite" games.  So I'm sure you can see that I am absurdly fucking happy for this.  Like, deliriously "if-things-were-better-I-would-proclaim-that-everything-is-amazing-and-life-is-wonderful" happy.  It's not quite there because of stuff and things going on elsewhere, but this is still pretty damn uplifting.

I suppose I should make a little notation here:  what I wasn't expecting was that the game would actually end up on PSP.  The way everything was going on and being talked about, it felt more like if -anything-, the series would be hitting PC through Steam only, meaning my clear data from First Chapter would be completely and utterly useless.  Meaning I would have to get a gaming computer (which I -intend- to), buy First Chapter on Steam (Which I will do -when- I get said gaming computer anyway, because FC is going up on Steam in Winter) so that I can beat it and buy and play Second Chapter (which, again, I will be doing -anyway- eventually) instead of just...you know, buying Second Chapter on my Vita so I could play it there with the data I already have.  So basically just prolonging that which has already taken a hell of a lot longer than I would've preferred, and more or less invalidating my PSP purchase of the game.  That's what I was worried about.  That's what most of us were worried about, and justifiably so, I should think.  Even though at least one or two of the XSEED folks just bought Sweet Fuse last week and were going on about that, proving that PSP games aren't dead yet, even if it's not going to sell ten million copies or some other absurd number.

It's happening, though.  Second Chapter is going to be published by XSEED sometime in 2014 featuring a translation done by Carpe Fulgur, who you probably know from Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale.  I don't know if they're starting over from scratch, or if they're going to supplement the XSEED translation that was already underway, but regardless, 2014 is a large enough window to cover either case I should think.  As you might expect, it's only going to release digitally, which as stated in posts previous, I have made a stink about before, but not for this.  In fact, I will go so far as to say that if you don't buy The Legend of Heroes:  Trails in the Sky Second Chapter -purely- because it's Digital-Only (No Physical, No Buy is the mantra there), then you are literally a shit and I hate you.  If I'm willing to throw $30-40 at my Vita until I can start the download for Second Chapter that will likely take somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-10 hours because I have the shittiest internet known to God and Man, then you can suck it up.  It's going to be worth it, if that's a more compelling argument.

Since this is happening, I very strongly recommend that you pick up Trails in the Sky (Store Link) at some point between now and when it's set to release so you'll be caught up and have some Clear Data to carry over into Second Chapter.  It's $20 which is not at all unreasonable for one of the best RPG releases in recent years.  Which is not something I say lightly.  And while I'm not going to compare TitS to something like, say, Persona 4 Golden, since they're both JRPGs, I am pointing out that I did bring up P4G in the same mention of calling Trails in the Sky one of the best RPG releases in recent years and let you come to terms with something on your own.  Since to directly compare them would be like comparing one delicious, decadent food item with another - they're both wonderful, they're both to be savored, and they're both to be appraised for what they are.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I have no doubts that Second Chapter will be equally delicious.

yes, I know, terrible metaphor but goddamnit, I am just so happy I don't even care

Mighty No. 9 is Mega Man, Funded, Awesome

It's simultaneously easy and incredibly difficult to believe that you have not heard of Mighty No. 9 at this point - on the one hand, it's been a busy weekend in North America at least, and that does sort of make it difficult to find out about Kickstarter news unless you're looking for it, but on the other hand, it feels like everybody already knows about Mighty No. 9.  So for those of you who don't know what the game it, it is basically Mega Man.  It looks like Mega Man, it has the same general concept as Mega Man, the same general playstyle as Mega Man and the same original creator as Mega Man.  Yes, Keiji Inafune, with his company Comcept USA, took to Kickstarter to get funding for the game known as Mighty No. 9 and did so in quite a swift amount of time - just around two days.  For a $900,000 goal on a busy weekend as it has been (PAX and Labor Day), it's rather impressive and it still has a run of 28 days before it closes down and locks in the exact final amount which, thanks to stretch goals, will more or less decide just how much Mighty No. 9 we're going to get.

The base game....well, why don't I let one of the Kickstarter Bullet Points explain that, yes?

• You play as Beck, the 9th in a line of powerful robots, and the only one not infected by a mysterious computer virus that has caused mechanized creatures the world over to go berserk. Run, jump, blast, and transform your way through six stages (or more, via stretch goals) you can tackle in any order you choose, using weapons and abilities stolen from your enemies to take down your fellow Mighty Number robots and confront the final evil that threatens the planet!

Blatant Mega Man comparisons aside (emphasis theirs, by the way, not mine), it says right there that the original goal is for six stages, but that seven and eight can be added through  the Stretch Goals and is specifically the first one at $1,200,000.  At this point in time, it's -almost- there even, being at $1,141,413 as I'm writing this (and updating constantly as I continue writing, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's fully to that goal by the time I'm finished).  It's not broken apart or anything - that stretch goal is the one that will add the stages for Mighty No. 7 and 8 and thus more or less make it even closer to the Mega Man games we all already know and love.  The other Stretch Goals include Mac and Linux versions (btw, base game is set only for PC, however...), New Game Plus and "Turbo Mode", a Making-Of Documentary and, of course, PS3/360/Wii U versions.  There are also two Stretch Goals which are....mysteries?  I guess?  Perhaps surprises along the way to spice things up or something.

If there's absolutely anything to be disappointed in at looking at Mighty No. 9, it's simply that the Console Versions are the very last Stretch Goal, set in at the $2,500,000 mark, and that there's no 3DS or Vita love, nor Next-Gen love aside from the Wii U.  Of course, Kickstarters are malleable by nature and the feedback on their official Twitter has stated that versions for all the consoles left out are possible, depending on funding and feedback.  The official statement re: PS4/XBone versions is that they're not planning on them due to lack of knowledge about the consoles which....is understandable since they're not even out yet, buy by the time Mighty No. 9 comes out, they will have been and for...a little while.  Obviously, I am that guy, always saying how I want everything on my Vita so this is certainly no exception, but mostly because it's a damn good fit.  Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X (which was free through Plus a while back) played wonderfully on the PSP (and the Vita as well) so Vita/3DS versions of the game just make sense, so long as they can work them properly.

Otherwise, I just haven't looked into it all that much because I don't really....need to.  It's a new, improved version of Mega Man with fun, new little twists and such, but is so much built on a foundation that I already know very well.  Conveniently, that means that I know it's going to be good with some level of certainty, which is nice to have.  However, as much as I like looking at Kickstarter projects - I prefer the ability to actually buy them when they're available or, in some cases, while they're on their way to being released, not when they're mere theories and concepts on paper and computer documents and files.  But I'm old-fashioned like that, it seems, especially when I consider that notion to be a silly one, since there are people who will un-ironically agree with my assertion that I'm old-fashioned because of that.  But that sort of stuff just makes my head hurt anymore.

Anyways, Mega M- Mighty No. 9.  It's going to be a thing and it's likely going to be fantastic.  Let's just see where all it ends up landing and how the Kickstarter plays out.  Certainly going to be interesting if nothing else.

I personally just love how tongue-in-cheek against Capcom the whole thing is

A Look Ahead - Soul Saga

Now that Soul Saga has been over-funded by three times the original pledge with the Kickstarter closed, I believe it's time to really start talking about it, since this is something you'll want to look forward to.  In the interest of full disclosure, the main reason this game is on my radar is because it will be available on Vita (and PS4, Wii U, PC, Mac and Linux) a year from now when it's finished (barring delays) and it looks really, really neat.  Originally, I'd heard the intention was simply those minus the PS4 and Vita (likely because the former hadn't been formally shown off yet, nor extrapolated on, both of which we saw happen at E3 and thereafter) and none of those play options were open to me.  So, admittedly, I just sort of passed on it which is obviously a bit selfish, but it's simply because there are just so many games, you guys.  I'm sure you realize.

If you're not quite sure what Soul Saga is, because you equally haven't been paying attention prior to this point, then it's a game that bills itself as a JRPG that's been inspired by some of the classics we remember growing up like Breath of Fire, Suikoden and of course, Final Fantasy, though there are some other RPGs that it draws from which I will get into in a bit.  It starts a bit familiarly; the main character, Mithos, is a young man following in the footsteps of his loathsome (from Mithos' perspective, at least) father in becoming a Guild Leader with the ultimate goal of succeeding where his father apparently failed.  Of course, just getting to that point will take some doing as being a Guild Leader obviously isn't a walk in the park.  However, it's through this that a bulk of the rather neat gameplay mechanics come into play, which is why I wanted to point it out beforehand.

I have held off long enough, so I want to get to one of the things that made me -really- excited about the game.  The world of Soul Saga is one made up of Sky Islands that rest upon a reef of clouds, shielding them from the harsh surface world below.  Being that they are -islands- in the -sky-, there's obviously only one way to get around - by airship.  Thanks to some of the stretch goals, the developer is going to be able to implement a Skies of Arcadia-styled Airship Exploration and Airship combat system which is amazing.  I would say that that element was one of the better parts of Skies of Arcadia, but that would be lying because -all- of the parts of SoA were good parts.  The Airship Exploration/Combat is merely something that made SoA stand out from the rest of the JRPG fare at the time and with good reason - not only was it different, but it was so good.  If SS's attempt is even half as good, it's going to be worth the game alone - something that I'm not saying as hyperbole.

Really, all of the stretch goals for the Kickstarter were for love letter-type things like that to older RPGs.  After you got by the basics of funding the game itself, Voice Acting and Wii U/PS4/Vita ports, it begins.  The Airship and combat stuff, I covered as Skies of Arcadia, just now.  The Job Board is something you're all familiar with - side quests to keep you occupied in the form of villager requests and the like, all posted to a central location.  Legendary Weapons is a standard as well, though more celebrated in Final Fantasy than anything I can think of - remember getting the Ultima Weapon for Cloud in FF7, or dodging 200 lightning bolts in FFX for Lulu's best doll weapon?  Yeah, it's like that, only they have their own storylines attached, so it's probably more involved than "Beat big optional boss". 

The Guild Master and Guild Hall areas are where we start delving heavily into Suikoden territory, (Technically Skies of Arcadia as well) in that the former has you scour the land for potential guild members and entice them to join you at your HQ.  The latter then allows you to have these guild members actually -do- things, provided they're not in the party (I assume, if they can even -be- in the party) giving things a sense of life that exists beyond when you're there.  Basically, it enters a bit of management into the game, which just isn't done enough, honestly, and has only met with limited success recently (what comes in my head first is the...questionable attempts by the Assassin's Creed games - send person out, wait, they might win, get reward is hardly exciting or worth bothering with), but can be a genuinely good mechanic.  One of the other stretch goals that was met, Guild Battles, also sounds to scratch the Suikoden itch, sounding to me like the War battles that the series introduced and ran with that were quite different and quite enjoyable.  There's still a few more Stretch goals that I didn't explain, some because they weren't funded (Though Garen's Saga is going to happen even though it didn't reach that total before the funding date) or because I'm just not sure what to think of them (like the Pandora's Boxes, which sound interesting and different), and if you're interested the full list is here with fairly detailed descriptions.

Mechanically, the game just sounds outstanding - a mesh of all the best parts of the best RPGs of the past, which seems to be a popular goal of late and an admirable one to go after.  After all, these neat little parts are -why- those series were beloved, even if it didn't get them the big sales numbers that were just hard to come by back then.  The development cycle of the game is something I'll be looking after with quite a bit of interest, since I can guarantee you that fifteen of my dollars will be going this game's way the moment it becomes purchasable on my Vita.  I am thoroughly sold at this point in time, and if you're not, I seriously have to question why.  Unless...you just don't like JRPGs, which is understandable.  Even still, this is ambitious and while I hope it's ready a year from now, I'll check my expectations here.  When it's done, it's done and if that ends up being more like a year and a half or better, well, so be it.  Just make sure the game is as good as it can be, because we're looking forward to it now, DisasterCake.

please include a giant friggin' Harpoon Gun weapon for your airships please, because that thing was so awesome

Cosmic Star Heroine Announced, Detailed

If you've been following either Robert Boyd or Bill Stiernberg of Zeboyd Games, chances are you've heard of CSH at some point in time.  CSH were the initials given for the name of the new IP Zeboyd was going to work on following Penny Arcade Adventures 4 and while I had thought "Cosmic Star Heroine" was just a working title (because it fit), it turns out that was the actual title it announced with today, which has been known for months.  Which....is fair, since Alyssa L'Salle, the protagonist of the game (pictured above) has also had a twitter account since March and nobody really figured it out, either.  Hilariously, that just re-enforces a little something about the character and works well in the favor of Zeboyd Games proper, since this is a neat little tidbit of info to come out after the actual announcement.

You see Alyssa L'Salle, in the context of Cosmic Star Heroine's world, is one of the greatest spies in the world (galaxy?) until she stumbles across something she's not supposed to do.  Apparently rather than dealing with her themselves, the Galactic Government whom she worked for instead simply outs her, drawing the attention of all her fans and enemies from the far corners.  After all, when you do what Alyssa does for a living, you're going to make a lot of enemies.  Powerful enemies.  So what better way of getting rid of her than by letting all of those enemies find her at once?  After all, maybe if they're really, really lucky, they'll fight over her.  At least, that's kind of the mental picture I'm getting from the little plot blurb from the actual announcement post.

Here’s a short plot teaser:
Alyssa L’Salle is one of the galactic government’s top agents and always manages to save the day! But when she accidentally uncovers a dark conspiracy, her own government outs her as a legendary spy and the people’s champion! Sure, now she has hordes of adoring fans but every villainous organization she’s ever crossed in her career knows who she is and is out for her blood! Can she save the day once more while she faces her greatest challenge… Everyone!?

Zeboyd Games has more or less made a rather big name for themselves by making Parody RPGs in the form of Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, and likely to a lesser extent with the Penny Arcade Adventure games, but Cosmic Star Heroine will nonetheless mark a departure from that.  A slight one, however, in that the game will still be an RPG, but it will be humorous instead of an outright parody which is absolutely fine.  Where it will likely make itself a little more apparent is with the different approach to mechanics the game is seemingly going to take.  First off, the Combat Map is gone and the game takes a more Chrono Trigger approach to it by simply having the enemies on screen with movement patterns of their own (that can chase you if you get too close) and allowing battles to happen right there on the exact same map with no transition.  This is something that...has honestly been lost even since the days -of- Chrono Trigger, so to see another game embrace it is heartening.

There are two big, big things about Cosmic Star Heroine's announcement that have me really hyped, however.  First off is the line "Players will be able to customize their own spy headquarters by recruiting more agents (think the Suikoden series)" for the obvious reason of it mentioning HQ-building like the Suikoden series.  If you haven't played any game in the Suikoden series, it's likely because you didn't play PS1 RPGs and you heard from a friend that Suikoden (or, more likely "this stupid game") 3 and/or 4 just aren't very good.  (3 is interesting, but I've learned that 4 is almost universally reviled and I don't own it regardless)  If you could believe it, there's a 5, and it's actually good, except it's almost definitely the very last Suikoden game that will ever be because Konami likes series that sell, but don't bother to make their developers make series worth selling.  (Except MGS, obv, but that's Kojima for you.) 

What made Suikoden good, however, is that it gave you large, large casts of characters (107 that you could recruit over the course of the game, not counting your MC) that all had some worth.  They weren't all battle-worthy, but they had neat things to say, or they did things at or to your castle that added a little flavor to it and was just one of those nice detail things.  They also served a big purpose later on in the games during the "War battles" that were not very commonplace, but nonetheless important.  Long story short, by the end of a Suikoden game, if you had a character in your army, there was a chance you knew -something- about them beyond "Oh, this character has a neat quirk" because they managed to make a large cast of characters most of the time, not just a large cast of party members.  It's a very, very distinct difference that games I won't mention by name, Chrono Cross, should have honestly paid more attention to in their own inception and creation.

The other important part, the part that is actually more important than the Suikoden part, is that this game and likely the games following CSH (or perhaps even preceding its release? Eh? I'll get to that in a second) will be coded in Unity.  Unity, for the unfamiliar is a development tool that is compatible with basically every announced and released platform with the singular exception of the 3DS that I know of.  So what does this technically mean for CSH and Zeboyd Games?  That they can put all their further games on whatever the hell they want.  What does it -actually- mean, according to Robert Boyd?  That they're aiming for PC, Mac (possibly) and PS4/Vita as platforms with a huge lean towards "definitely" on the Vita, with Bill Stiernberg personally pushing for Cross-Buy if it does indeed hit PS4 as well.  Basically what it means is that unless something drastic happens, Zeboyd Games will finally be publishing on Sony consoles so those of us with terrible PCs and no XBox 360s (admittedly, this is a small, small portion of people that I think is only myself) can finally witness first-hand what they're capable of, which is definitely important.

Though I can't help but hold out hope that this will not be the first game the Vita sees bearing the Zeboyd branding on it.  A while ago, as Robert Boyd became more and more enamored with the Vita and more and more enamored with the battle system they'd created and fine-tuned for the PAA games, he posited a simple question:  "Would you like Vita remakes of Cthulhu Saves the World/Breath of Death VII if it meant delaying our new game?"  Of course, it didn't quite end just there as it started picking up some steam when theory was put into practice - Breath of Death VII's first dungeon was completely recreated in PAA4's graphics engine in less than a single hour, making it clear that such a transition would not be harsh, and the realization that hitting a new platform would not only give them experience in developing -for- that hardware, but to also improve on what was there already.  This eventually spawned what such a game would look like if it ever saw the light of day, as said by Robert Boyd himself at NeoGaf:

Cthulhu Saves the World All-Stars
PC, PSN (definitely Vita, probably PS3/Vita cross-buy)
$10
Includes remakes of Breath of Death VII & Cthulhu Saves the World
Remakes would have visuals on par with Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4.
Gameplay would be rebalanced & would include some of the stuff we've added in the PA series.
Would also include two new "games" - Breath of Death XIII-2: Undead in Time and Cthulhu Saves the Galaxy.
Breath of Death XIII-2 would be inspired by Space Quest IV. i.e. you'd travel to other "installments" of the Breath of Death series.
Cthulhu Saves the Galaxy would be a direct sequel to CSTW.
BoDXIII-2 & CSTW would probably be about as long as BoDVII each. Maybe a little longer.

Truly, it's a thing of beauty.  However, I haven't heard word one of this happening since it was dreamed up (and then reported by several sites as a thing that was definitely happening since they missed the whole context of the situation) and I do worry that with CSH officially announced (though I suppose they might not have started work on it yet) that this was quietly swept under the rug.  Regardless of whether or not Cthulhu Saves the World All-Stars will ever see the light of day, however, it does of course reinforce that Zeboyd Games is enthusiastic about developing for the Vita which is the important part to take away here for those of us who really, really love our Vitas.  Which I suggest is just about everyone who actually owns one.  So no matter what game actually does end up coming out first, I'm happy to say that I'll be putting money aside specifically for it.  Since that's something I'll actually be able to do.

gotta say, if Alyssa doesn't make one Burn Notice reference, however, I'm gonna be disappointed

Nosgoth is Confirmed, All Sorts of Red Flags

Who's ready for some more bad news?  It's not like there hasn't been -enough- of that this week, of course.  Still, the suck train has to keep on rollin' and is it any surprise that Squeenix has taken over the conducting for the evening?  No?  Of course it isn't.  After the news about Deus Ex: The Fall being a Tablet/Phone FPS you might be wondering at just how they could top that in the terrible ideas department.  I mean, that is....that is kind of a doozy to pull off, and I'm not -exactly- sure that the news actually tops it.  It comes close, though, even if it's kind of a 'thing' that a lot of companies are doing.  What is that thing?

Taking a Single-Player and needlessly turning it into a multi-player affair of course!

A while back, there were some listings of a "Nosgoth" title through Squeenix registering "WarForNosgoth.com" and some AMD Crossfire driver files called "Nosgoth" and "War For Nosgoth" which kind of made it seem like Squeenix was going to do -something- with the Legacy of Kain franchise.  For those not in-the-know, Nosgoth is actually the name of the land that the Legacy of Kain franchise takes place in, of course, which makes it pretty difficult to think that those things are for anything -but- a Legacy of Kain game.  Yet, Squeenix bucks expectations yet again and I cannot help but sit here and hold my head and laugh.  Because this is absolutely absurd that I'm about to type what I'm about to type, and yet, it was straight from the mouth of George Kelion, Squeenix's Community Manager.

"Nosgoth exists and is in active development, but is not a traditional Legacy of Kain action-adventure game," Kelion said. "Nosgoth is set in the same universe as previous LoK games, but on a different branch to the Blood Omen and Soul Reaver series. The community should not be thinking of Nosgoth in terms of a single-player experience."

'The community should not be thinking of Nosgoth in terms of a single-player experience.'

It's pretty much at this point that I just want to stop acknowledging this is a thing that exists.  Because a multi-player game in the Legacy of Kain game that doesn't involve Kain and/or Raziel just sounds like the worst idea possible.  Oh, also Crystal Dynamics isn't developing it.  Just....just needed to throw that in there to sort of reinforce the whole 'worst idea possible' thing.  Despite the overwhelming stupidity of all of that, let's...hell, let's try to do something with this.  Let's just take a look at what a few ideas of a multi-player non-Kain/Raziel Legacy of Kain game could....could attempt to be.  If only to be masochistic, because some of these ideas....well, they are certainly ideas.

1.  An MMO

Look.  I know this is a bullshit idea, but they're -all- bullshit ideas in the whole context of it, really.  But let's look at facts here - the game is going to be called "War for Nosgoth" and it's not going to be a Single-Player game.  Which means you're going to have Person-to-Person conflict, likely, which means you're going to have two factions (Humans and Vampires) which means you've got the perfect set-up for an MMO since it really only requires that much of a set-up.  The rest of it, the faction stories, the quests that kill time while you get to level 50 or 60 or what have you, it's all honestly kind of secondary because the impetus is to get you in the door and on a team.  In the immortal words of Stephen Colbert:  "Pick a side, we're at war".  It's the easiest concept in the book which is why we've seen so many MMOs start up.  Of course, because it's so easy, there's a lot of....under-thought concepts that lead to a lot of those MMOs failing miserably.  Which is neutral to my point, of course.

Squeenix obviously doesn't really care about this since they're honestly not giving a Legacy of Kain title a Legacy of Kain attempt of work.  I don't care if this comes out as an MMO and it's the slickest shit you've ever seen and plays awesome and whatever.  It won't, but I wouldn't care if it did.  It's not going to be an excellently written and acted single-player game that revolves around Kain and/or Raziel as they draw nearer and nearer to their ultimate conflict that was set-up in Raziel's first game.  It's not going to be a Legacy of Kain game.  So making War for Nosgoth an MMO makes perfect sense in terrible idea world since if you ignore literally everything, you have a game that is easy to think up and work around, has to be purchased and then subscribed to, thus making mad bank, all while just sort of doing its own thing by existing.

Of course, you would think that maybe Squeenix knows a little better about attempting MMOs now...but I'm not willing to give them that benefit of the doubt.

2.  A MOBA

MOBAs, I'm told, are kind of the 'next thing' now that we're steadily shifting away from MMOs.  If anything, MOBAs seem even easier to figure out than MMOs, what with not having to really even bother with pesky story or anything like that, but I'm gonna level with you here.  I have no fucking concept of what a MOBA is because I avoid everything related to League of Legends like the fucking plague.  But I know of other things of its type springing up, like Infinite Crisis DC Universe, Blizzard All-Stars and Dawngate, and I know of them all being MOBAs which is still some term that exists on the internet that I don't care about entertaining.

These types of games seem to rely exclusively on the 'Hero' characters of which you are allowed to play any of in a match that consists of your team going from one side of a map to the other and killing your enemies until someone kills the other team better and eventually wins.  Being that they're apparently inventing a whole new side to Nosgoth, dummying up about two dozen "Heroes" for the Humans and Vampires should be a breeze.  Depending on the timeline they use, it's -possible- they could use a few established characters, but I doubt very highly that they will, since just about everything here reeks of "We're not doing anything at all with the original Legacy of Kain games" because, well.....obvious theory is obvious.  The likelihood of this being the easier cash-in option is very high and all I can figure on War for Nosgoth being is some cheap cash-in.

3. Awkward Forced Co-Op Game

This one is probably the hardest to actually name, because there's all sorts of games that live and breathe on co-op and don't do it awkwardly, like the Left 4 Dead games and such, but this is, well, Squeenix.  Using Nosgoth as a basis for some type of multi-player game that doesn't involve Kain or Raziel which I cannot harp on enough unless I am misinterpreting "on a different branch to the Blood Omen and Soul Reaver series" in some fashion.  Suggesting that they make some sort of Co-Op game (hopefully third-person melee, I swear to God, if they have some sort of gun or gun replacements, I will flip) in the vein of any of these types of things is, well, just asking for it to be terrible, awkward and forced.

Because of the way the Legacy of Kain timeline is set-up, there are basically two areas where Humans vs. Vampires can be an effective setting.  The original timeline which was messed around with by Moebius in a way that actually -prevented- the 'war' as it was since it sort of pre-emptively lead to the premature destruction of vampires as a whole or the timeline that occurs after, wherein Kain takes his throne of power and begins creating Vampires that then go to war with, and eventually overcome, humankind despite their best efforts and holy warriors.  They're....really sort of similar situations, it's just that the main aggressor changes from one to the other.  This is still fairly easy to sort of plop out for a bit of cash with really no effort or care to the original subject matter.

I think to say that whatever comes of War for Nosgoth will be something I don't care about is an under-statement.  I could be wrong, and since this is all me sort of predicting things, there is a good chance that I -will- be wrong.  I just don't know, however.  The red flags are flying high and basically some guy that works for Squeenix announced it before it was officially announced with this thought process:

"This isn't something we'd normally do," Kelion explained, regarding the decision to confirm the game's existence, "but we wanted to just give folks a bit more context for the direction, rather than just batten down the hatches."

This is something you only say when you are abjectly terrified of crowd response because you know what you are doing is wrong.  "Hey, we're bringing back the Legacy of Kain universe but WHOA HEY HOLD ON, STOP CHEERING, IT'S NOT GOING TO BE SINGLE-PLAYER OR INVOLVE THE OTHER GAMES" is a terrible, terrible ploy with which you launch your new game and it's sad when -you obviously know this- and yet you do it anyway.  Whatever this is going to be, unless it looks shit-hot amazing, it literally has no real buyer base.  Legacy of Kain fans won't buy it because it's not Legacy of Kain, people unfamiliar will either look at it and say "Oh, it's (this game) but with Vampires" or ask people who have played Legacy of Kain games for background, who will then say "No, don't worry about that, it's going to suck".  It just doesn't make sense.

Go home, Squeenix.

they may or may not in fact be drunk

REVENGEANCE is Officially Heading for PC

You know how sometimes there's news for a game that you -really- want to talk about because it's something that you're really excited for, but the news is essentially a single sentence?  Like, "Metal Gear Rising: REVENGEANCE is getting a PC Release" and that's really the whole of the news available for it?

Yeah.

This is one of those times.

Of course, me being me, I want to be able to say more than just that because of the reason why I bring it up in the first place.  That being:  REVENGEANCE is sweet-as-hell and you should all buy it because there's literally no excuse now.  Er, soon.  No excuse soon.  Ish.  Unless you're a weird person who solely games on Nintendo things. But, as stated, those people are weird. (I'm mostly kidding, clearly)  Really, with the game soon-to-be-available on all of the major platforms (Wii U notwithstanding) then there really is very little reason that you could not pick up the game, though whether or not you -should- is clearly where the question lies.  If you will allow me, I would like to make a very strong argument as to why you -should- buy it on PC if you truly do not have the means to have already purchased it on PS3 or 360.

Metal Gear Rising:  REVENGEANCE is probably my Game of the Year at this point.  That I haven't actually sat down and written about it in a manner that befits it is criminal and I don't really know -why- I haven't done that aside from creative barriers and the like that have suddenly cropped up.  However, I have meant to, and I have alluded to that fact several times by this point.  It doesn't make up for it, of course, nor does it excuse it, but it at least makes it less of a 'surprise' at this point.  In all reality, it might be that I simply have a hard time quantifying what I feel when I actually play REVENGEANCE and, hell, when I -remember- playing the game.

When I say it's probably my Game of the Year at this point, I say that with full knowledge that I've actually played quite a few new releases already this year with many more on the horizon.  I say it because there are few words that can effectively convey the fun and joy that I experience when I actually play it, though I suppose mentioning fun and joy is a good start.  Playing the game, actually playing it....is just a dream.  It's less about playing the game, about the mechanics, about anything than it is about using everything you have to just have as much fun as you can.  Every room full of enemies is a new chance to pull off some sort of amazing combo, if not in numbers, but in executions.  A chance to dismember every one of them in a different way if that's your thing, or a chance to find new and exciting ways to take them out as you get new weapons added to your armory.

The thing about REVENGEANCE is that, despite its fairly linear structure by nature, there's a staggering amount of freedom when it comes to the fights because of how freeform it can be.  Not only with weapons, with sub-weapons, but with little things like appearance and style as well as the Wigs that enhance your abilities in some fashion.  Throw on the Brown Wig and become a Grenadier.  Stun everyone with whatever's handy before you eviscerate them.  Stay back and pelt everyone with rockets because you have a rocket launcher in your pocket and you ain't even -care-.  Do whatever you want.  Do whatever makes the game fun for you because there is a way for that.  I cannot fathom someone playing REVENGEANCE and not, eventually, finding a way to play it that makes it an enjoyable experience for them.

Beyond actual confirmation from both Kojima and Platinum saying that REVENGEANCE will be on PC, there's...really nothing else that we know.  No release window, no price, no anything.  If it's towards the end of the year, we could probably hope for a Not-$60 pricetag or, if it has one that the Sam and BladeWolf DLC packs are included with the purchase.  Being that they're both already out -now-, it stands to reason that they are going to be part of the porting process and, one would hope, bundled with the game to make it a more enticing purchase.  But regardless of any of that, the game should be an enticing purchase because it is friggin' Metal Gear Rising:  REVENGEANCE.  Buy it when it comes out.  Enjoy it.  Because it's a hell of a ride.

I still recommend "The Frank Jaeger Experience" as a method of playing REVENGEANCE

Game Dev Tycoon Has Hilarious Anti-Piracy Measures

Doing fun things to the coding of your games that are only visible on pirated versions of it is not a new concept by any means, but it is almost always a fun one to explore.  These little bits of coding, whatever they set off, it's solely intended on being viewed by someone who has not actually paid money for your game, nor gone through anyone who paid money for it either (like a gifting option).  As such, you might expect them to be mean-spirited or even just nasty, yet I can't honestly name one instance of that - everything basically boils down to electrifying the cookie jar lid so that you get a little shock when you try to sneak one before dinner.  You cast a sheepish look around and spot someone just giving you a knowing smirk - the trap-setter - and the two of you share a shrug.  No harm done, I suppose, but you've got to play by the rules now.  After all, you just literally got caught red-handed.

Take this instance for example, if you would:  Game Dev Tycoon is a game where you start up a game development company sometime in the 80s as a small operation with the intention of building it into a big brand that releases blockbuster titles.  It's not the first of its kind, nor will it be the last, and it's a genuinely interesting concept if nothing else.  It has a natural, obvious progression and for the most part, it's something you could likely sink time into 'indefinitely', except I imagine there's a point where the game 'ends' because of the years that have passed, if nothing else, and your success is measured then.  Maybe I'm wrong on that, however.  Regardless, if you're a legitimate purchaser and player of the game, you'll be able to have a nice, thriving company if you run it right.  However, if you've not purchased the game, eventually the games that your studio is making will start getting pirated more and more, and sold less and less.  Such a recipe is only good for disaster and, eventually, your company will go bankrupt.

This was the scenario that played out for a staggering 94% of initial players.  Ninety-four.  Of the 3,318 copies of the game that were floating around through the internet after its initial release, only 214 of them were purchased legitimately and it's thanks to this little anti-piracy scheme that we're seeing the true scope of this kind of figure.  People took to message boards, not-so-innocently lamenting the fact that they were unable to actually complete the game proper because their studios kept closing.  "Why are there so many pirates?  They're ruining my studio!" is exclaimed, yet nobody really understands the subtle irony to it because it is not exactly subtle, being the majority.  There's something funny about one or two people who pirated the game taking to message boards and voicing their confusion at a very obvious issue, as it always is in these situations.  There's something incredibly sad when those boards get flooded and it's less the outlier and more the norm.

I'll not get into the philosophical debate about whether or not piracy actually leads to lost income in developers since every side to the argument ends up going over semantics about entitlement and it's just not a fun conversation any way you slice it.  I will, however, say that I think this is absolutely brilliant if just for the subtle jab it takes that couldn't help but look for a better impact with the 95% piracy rate of the game.  Seriously, it's $8.  It's made by a handful of guys.  You seriously can't spend $8 to support these dudes for making a game that you obviously want to play?  And the "Piracy-As-Demo" idea doesn't fly considering there's an actual demo of the game.  With any luck, the exposure their story has gotten from the little piracy thing will divert a few sales their way since they deserve some money if just for providing a good laugh.  Yeah, their game isn't completely totally original, but what is anymore?  If it works and if it's fun, that's all that matters.

"wait my studio closed because of piracy?  geez, it's like karma or something"

I Haven't Talked About BLOOD DRAGON Yet

After you watch the above video, you'll know why this is a Bad Thing™ that I haven't yet.

So I'll give you some time to do that.

...
...

It's a bad thing because BLOOD DRAGON is every shade of fucking awesome.

I need only remind of my love for absurdity and I think it all becomes crystal clear since Far Cry 3:  Blood Dragon is quite possibly one of the most absurd things to happen to video games in a long time and that is a very good thing.  I mean, if someone does a Live-Action trailer for the game where the main character gets into a cyber katana duel with a robot while a shockwave from a nuclear explosion barrels towards them, you have to give it up for that shit.  Because that's not the craziest bit about the game by a long shot and it's still so fucking awesome that I cannot emphasize the point enough and I think you realize that by now.

If you don't know what Far Cry 3:  Blood Dragon is beyond the sparse ramblings of "it's fucking awesome" that I've put forth, it's....well, rather unique to explain.  Basically Dinosaurs got busy with the 80s and injected pure Neon into the baby.  If you think I'm joking then perhaps have a look at some of the more official things attached to the project, eh?

The Logo, plus some....endorsements.

The official reveal trailer for the game

A screenshot literally steeped in Neon Lights

I guess I can throw down some actual technical aspects of this thing since that's about the only coherent thing you'll get from me about it.  Blood Dragon is a stand-alone expansion to Far Cry 3 coming out for PSN, XBLA and Steam which means you do not have to own Far Cry 3 to buy and play Blood Dragon.  It's simply built off of the same engine which is fairly evident.  Of course, you -should- own Far Cry 3 because it was fantastic as well, even if Blood Dragon will literally be better than it in every conceivable way.  It's set for release on May 1st which means there is no reason it shouldn't be the very first game you buy in May, especially since it'll only be $15.  (I believe)  Being that it's built on the Far Cry 3 engine, it's carrying over a lot of tenets from that game, even if it paints them all with neon and badassness - people might've noticed a neon bow and arrow in the trailer, plus the knife which looked like a futuristic dragon dagger (like you eventually get in FC3), so those remain, as will at least some of the wildlife.  The free-roaming island won't be anywhere near as large as FC3's, but it'll still be expansive to be sure and similarly filled with things to do, like larger outposts to infiltrate and conquer.

I...really don't know what else I can say.  I really don't think there's anything else I have to say.

You want Blood Dragon.

Buy it.

fuck yeah Blood Dragon fuck yeah