Showing posts with label quickie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quickie. Show all posts

7/09/2015

Fallout Shelter vs. SJW

Let me tell you the story of my Vault 666. Room and resources were scarce. Everyone had to contribute. The expansion went fairly quick until we've hit the population of 14 or so. At this point, new dwellers did not appear and the growing production rooms needed manpower. In one of the lunchboxes my dwellers found a Medieval Ruler Outfit, adding to charisma among other stats. Quick check what charisma is for later, I've selected a man with the most charisma, added the Ruler outfit and that's how King Woland was born. His role - staying in the living quarters and impregnating all the women in my vault. This was the fastest and most efficient way, as everyone else needed to help with the respource production. Once all the ladies showed significant signs of pregnancy, King Woland, having the highest stats, went out to the wasteland, to find more weapons and outfits. In the meantime, it turned out that in case of any disaster, like fire or a raid, my pregnant dwellers run for their lives, leaving men to deal with the problem. This quickly taught me to give all the weapons I found to men, tasking them with defence. We are facing extinction - there's no point in arguing. Men get to defend the next generation with guns. Women with not endangering the fetus. Hard to imagine it the other way round.


A week later my Vault already has 120+ dwellers. Population is not an issue, I have more people than I need anyway. I keep training the dwellers to maximize production and caps income. Breeding is not necessary, since I have a fully upgraded radio station with six gorgeous girls in lingerie with their charisma maxed out. There's no reason not to give women weapons or education now. Some of them are as highly trained as men, some even explore the wasteland. Life is good. 

Now let's imagine Bethesda wanting to suck up to Social Justice Warriors while designing the game. After reaching the 14 dwellers point I would probably find out that half of the population is homosexual. Keeping track of everyone's sexual preferences would be extremely annoying gameplaywise, but I would probably finally manage to get one or two women pregnant, after hour-long minigames that show how respectful the men are towards these women. In a few days, I'd crawl my way up to the 20 dwellers treshold to unlock the radio and right after that a Wasteland Adoption Agency to let all the gay couples in my vault have a baby. In the meantime, the only women that were willing to get pregnant a couple times with different partners would be slut-shamed into leaving the vault and pretty quickly the Wasteland League for Equality would enforce parity that would make me unable to accept any straight white males into the vault. Within a week my shelter would be abandoned by its Overseer, who got tired of micromanaging and women screaming "rape" each time the poor raiders just want to steal some water. All those poor dwellers would die, equally irradiated, starved or slain.


What a terrible game that would be! Not because there would be homosexuals in it. Because gameplaywise it would be tedious and most of all, it would be unfitting for the world of Fallout. I am extremely glad that Bethesda did not give in to the pressures of seasonal feminists and other groups that aggressively refuse to think outside their narrow agenda. Fallout Shelter's gameplay quite realistically shows how a vault dwelling society in nuked 50's USA would get organized. I'm actually quite surprised that there was no shitstorm here like with Kingdom Come: Deliverance for example. Maybe the internet finally got tired of trolls? Maybe we're finally growing up and people are starting to use their heads for something else than angrybanging their keyboards? Here's hoping we are finally starting to let people make games about fun again, not enforcing social concepts.

12/10/2014

Quickie: Piracy and voting

It's been boiling in my mind for quite some time now and I couldn't decide how to take a bite of this topic. I still don't know if this is the right way, but... Here goes:

Buying games is your voting right
Seriously. Not only the fact of buying it, but also the way you do it matters. You can preorder or buy a collector's edition, showing your strongest support. You can buy digital or day one version or any other full-price. You can also wait for a discount, buy it in a Humble Bundle, a used box or even get for free on some giveaway or from PlayStation Plus or XBL Gold. You can play a free-to-play title without spending a single dollar or you can finish the game and decide you want to pay - let's say $10 for it. What matters here is basically how much you spend on the game and how much of it returns to the developer.

You may not realize what great power we are all holding in our hands. With our money, we are encouraging or disencouraging studios to do certain stuff. When a studio plans a game, it always looks for references and it always looks at success stories. Whether you're an indie developer or a AAA company, you will always choose to go the way that made millions over the way that commercially failed. And that's actually the only sane business strategy, but it also smothers innovation.

Every E3 people are waiting for Sony to announce The Last Guardian will come out soon. We would all have The Last Guardian on our shelves for years now if ICO and Shadow of the Colossus sold a decent amount of copies. 

Everyone keeps getting back to Vampire: Bloodlines and Arcanum and remembering, what great games they were. So what they were great? Bloodlines sold less than 100k units and there's no Troika Games anymore. Who knows how many great RPGs we could have had if they were kept afloat? Instead us, gamers, gave our money to BioWare to recycle Baldur's Gate into two mediocre Icewind Dales.


I see a lot of people complaining that all the games are the same, that the AAA industry is just copying the same ideas over and over.  I am not gonna tell you how to spend your money, but if you want more innovative games, try buying games that are innovative. Not the same titles every year.

Oh yeah, piracy. Right. You, pirates, have no voice. Whatever you download, doesn't matter. Your choice doesn't matter. You're complaining the game isn't great? Who cares - it's not like you tried to support it in any way. You're complaining there's no game worth buying? Well who do you expect to develop it if nobody has your support?


8/25/2014

Quickie #3: Attacks on PSN, Battle.net and others

My first thought when I heard that was "okay, but why do that?" Then, of course, my thoughts kept wandering. It didn't really make me all that angry or scared. If it's "just" DDoS, then my credit card info should be safe as far as I know and yes, it does suck that I can't purchase and download a new game online, but... But I immediately thought that it is just an opportunity to catch up with the dozens of games that I've already installed or have in boxes or clutter my Steam Library. Seriously, I could probably live and play happily for a year or two without really missing the online services.

But... That's just an approach of a guy who grew up without internet. For all the players that base their entertainment on online rivalry or developing their artificial life in WoW, attacks on such services are like a kick between their legs. Imagine what would happen if all these online junkies wouldn't get their fix for a month. Would gaming really have nothing to offer them? All these kids writing "multiplayer or gtfo" under every gameplay trailer would actually have to gtfo and play some football or chess or something.

The image barely makes sense here, but I couldn't resist anyway.
I am far from justifying or giving meaning to what was most probably just an act of a group of extremely bored teenagers, but if there actually was a message behind this, what would it be? For me it would be something like this: "Play a game for the story once in a while. Instead of running, shooting and shouting in CoD, check out what happened in Dubai in Spec Ops: The Line. Instead of cheesing through a choke in Starcraft, check out how Kerrigan became what she became. Instead of spending 10 hours a day in WoW, well... Play just any other game that came out in the last 10 years."

2/04/2014

Quickie #2: PlayStation Plus

I often hear players, especially the young ones, complaining how expensive games are. And ten years ago, it would have been completely true, but nowadays, with Steam sales, humble bundles, Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus, games have become incredibly accessible for any kid with an allowance of $5 to $10 a month. What I will present below is not aimed at advertising the PS+ service. I am sure Xbox Live Gold is offering similar benefits, but since I don't have it, I won't be writing about it. PC gamers have lots of obvious ways to save cash on games too. Just treat it like... A nerdy noob playing with a spreadsheet :)

Yesterday I turned my PS3 on and remembered that a new month has started, so most probably I will get some new games. For some reason, this month I wasn't searching the web for this info and I got surprised. After last month's Borderlands 2 + DMC, this month I received Metro: Last Light and Bioshock Infinite.

I started doing the math (I like math - shoot me), I even prepared a whole spreadsheet (bring a shotgun) and what came out, pleased me greatly. I have bought the 1-year membership somewhere around August or September. It hasn't even been half a year. It costs $50 in the US, in Poland it is actually a bit more expensive, somewhere around $62.


During that time I have received over 30 games. I even checked the prices (as of 2. February 2014) and here's the exact list with total values:

for PSP:
GTA Liberty City Stories
total value: 59 PLN (~19 USD), average metascore: 88

for Vita:
ModNation Racers: Road Trip, Dynasty Warriors Next, Soul Sacrifice, BLAZBLUE Continuum Shift Extend, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD, MotorStorm RC, Gravity Rush, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Touch My Katamari, Street Fighter X Tekken, 
total value: 1083 PLN (~344 USD), average metascore: 76,9

for PS3:
BioShock Infinite, Metro: Last Light, DMC Devil May Cry, Borderlands 2, Grid 2, Remember Me, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Jak II: Renegade, Jak 3, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Mafia II, Spec Ops: The Line, Far Cry 3, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, LittleBigPlanet Karting, Guacamelee!, Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark
total value: 2262 PLN (~718 USD), average metascore: 81

for PS4:
Don't Starve: Console Edition, Contrast, Resogun.
total value: 167 PLN (~53 USD), average metascore: 73,3

Now this means that for the 195 PLN (62 USD) I have spent on the 1-year membership, in less than half a year I got a total of 3571 PLN (1133 USD) in games with average metascore of 79,6. And I'm counting in current values. A number of these games had to be more expensive a few months ago when I got them. 


Now let's analyze it further. My PS3 with 2 gamepads, PS Eye and two Move wands cost me 1300 PLN (412 USD), I bought a PSP for 300 PLN (95 USD) and the 1-year membership for 195 PLN (62 USD). Total cost of 1795 PLN (569 USD) The games I got for these platforms only are worth more than I spent on the hardware. The PlayStation Plus paid me back for the whole investment in the hardware. 

If I wanted to buy a Vita to play all these games I've accumulated, I would need to pay 600 PLN (180 USD), which would still be less than the value of the games I already have for this platform. And it's just been half of the subscription time. By the end of this subscription period, it will save me enough money to buy a PS4... at least twice, and I will already have more or less 10 games for it.

Now I know not all these games are titles I dream of, some of them I won't even touch and yes, I did not get them in day one. Still, thanks to PS+ I have at least halved my new game purchases and I have doubled the length of my "to play" list. Also, if you are a developer, you need to play lots of various games, even those you wouldn't normally buy. And if you are a gamer complaining that games are expensive, I think this is still a quite solid advice how you can make your gaming experience more affordable. 

11/27/2013

Quickie #1: Fanboys

Hello guys! For a while now I had a few topics bottled up inside, but I didn't feel they deserve a whole article. Then I realized (yeah, I know - I can be reeeeaaally fast sometimes) that not every post on a blog needs to be a full-blown article. Long story short, I'm starting a new series on the blog - Quickies!


Today's quickie came to me when I was watching the newest episodes of South Park (for the people from the future - 17th season, episodes about Xbox One and PS4 premiere). South Park has really recovered in this season, by the way. None of the episode was straightforward boring or completely forgettable, like most of the episodes from a few last series. Good job, Trey and Matt! Back to the topic though. The episodes are about children forming alliances to buy either PS4 or the new Xbox. Among a lot of dumb arguments about which console is going to be better and other arguments that are just a complete matter of preference, there was one that struck me. It was when one of the Xbox followers said:

If you buy a PS4 you will not be able to play online with us!
Frankly, I never thought about it this way. Back when I was a kid and could only afford one gaming platform, it was really cool to have something nobody else had. I remember how me and the other kids were visiting each other, because one had a NES, one had a PC, the other had a Commodore and another one an Amiga. Then, in another generation, one had a Pentium, another a N64 and some other kids had PlayStations. People played together by visiting each other. Variety of platforms meant a variety of games you could play. You having something nobody else had was a social advantage! Now, in the age of online gaming, kids grow fat on their couches, not interacting with each directly. Sure online multiplayer is great, but I myself miss the days of good old co-op, where we were spending whole days on 8-player battles in Heroes 3. Now it seems that the console you own determines your social circle. Kinda sucks. 


Like the heroes of South Park, the majority of kids have to choose only one gaming platform. For economic reasons mostly. Even as an adult I am reluctant to buy a new console just to play a few games that interest me and are not available on other platforms. These games - exclusives - are in my opinion the very core of the fanboy phenomenon. I mean - most of the platforms are similarly attractive. Arguing which one of the two most popular controllers is better when the biggest difference is where the D-pad is? Seriously, guys - go find yourselves a real problem instead of running around in a wizard hat, forming childish alliances. The only actual difference between platforms are the exclusives. The exclusives from the other gaming platform are something that all the fanboys secretly crave. It is what they are jealous of. It's what makes all the hate boil. If you are a PC gamer and can't play The Last of Us or Gears of War, so you will loudly glorify Starcraft 2 on your way to BlizzCon. Most PS gamers loathe not being able to play Halo, so they boast about the God of War. X-boxers would die to go on a Journey or to play Demon's Souls, but instead they embrace Fable.  And Nintendo fans... Well, they've just been playing Mario and Zelda over and over for the last 30 years :P 

Acting like a fanboy is simply a way of overcompensating for the games you can't play. If you think about it, being a fanboy is psychologically identical to a small wiener syndrome - overcompensating for something you don't have.