Star Ocean 6 – Thoughts

Well today was certainly a shocker for sure, I didn’t expect to see a Star Ocean game so soon, kinda a shame that I did my comparison so early, I could have included it in there, don’t think you’re going to escape from my scrutiny Star Ocean 6, I will certainly take great pleasure in tearing you apart like I did with all the other games in the series. Regardless, with the announcement of Star Ocean 6 came a very depressing revelation, the fact that we have had 2 Star Ocean games in a row with no Valkyrie Profile games in between, even if we count mobile games, this is still true since Star Ocean also has a mobile game. This immediately hit me when I saw this announcement and I thought “this isn’t what I truly wanted, but it’s better than nothing”.

It honestly shocks me that they have gone this route with the game because I expected them to do a remake of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time because it would be a sure sell. Instead what they seem to be doing is taking a more modern approach to the Star Ocean series. What this means is that the entire Star Ocean series is going to have a completely new identity. Now this can go one of two ways. We could either get lucky and get the Pokemon Colosseum of the Star Ocean series, or we could get unlucky and get the Diablo 3 of the Star Ocean series, where everything that made the series special to begin with disappears and gets replaced with trash modern gameplay.

Now I know that a lot of people hated Star Ocean 5 but honestly this could actually get worse but at the same time it could get better. If there’s one thing 5 did right it’s the fact that it stayed true to the formula for the most part. Now I highly doubt that Star Ocean 6 will be the worst Star Ocean since it’s pretty damn hard to top Star Ocean 3 and Anamnesis in that regard. What I will say though is that this could and probably will change the Star Ocean series forever, its identity will change for the better or for worse and we should brace ourselves for this transition. I both fear and anticipate Star Ocean 6, it is the unknown, it is all or nothing, this is the last hope for the Star Ocean series… because the previous last hope was ruined by an emo loli, a cat girl and a winged demonic creature that overdosed on helium and has a crayon stuck in their brain, so we need another hope to save the series.

Here’s the reality people, many of the people who worked at tri-Ace in the past have sadly departed, Suguro is gone now and so many other people have left the company. They have hired new talent and because of this, we have to expect something completely different. I have a feeling that when I do get to play Star Ocean 6, I will hopefully enjoy it but at the same time, I will be one of those guys who misses the good ol’ days of the early games. Still I am always up for change because at least there’s a chance that change can bring good. The only problem is that I am a member of the 2000’s renaissance, I yearn for the good old days and the industry as it is today has a lot of problems. I fear that Star Ocean 6’s new approach may be a colossal failure due to the state of the industry. At the same time I feel like I may be alienated by the game due to the fact that the entire industry has alienated me for over a decade, yet only 1 Star Ocean game has been released in the previous decade, the one beforehand getting 2 releases, so forgive me for sounding like a grumpy old sod but I feel like gaming has left me behind.

The thing is though, I do really want to play this game at some point but at the same time, I have so many games to play right now as it is that I can honestly wait till 2024 to play my new Star Ocean game, then again I don’t want them to delay it for so long that it becomes another Duke Nukem Forever or Final Fantasy XV, we certainly don’t want that do we? I certainly can wait for it though and I will, I can’t say that I can’t wait because I have plenty to do in the meantime, so many 6th gen gems for me to play for the time being. Just means my backlog is gonna get bigger and bigger till I get buried under it, someone help me, I’m dying from lack of oxygen due to all the unfinished games piled on top of me, blocking the air flow!

I think my perception of gaming has changed a lot in the past few years, it went from being excited to new releases to being “Oh ok, this is a thing, I’ll try to pretend to be excited” hopefully I won’t miss the party when I’m busy playing No More Heroes as well as countless other games, most of which are 6th gen gems because I don’t want to miss this game as it is a tri-Ace game and tri-Ace games, no matter how flawed they may be, always speak to me in ways that few other games can. Let’s just hope that this tri-Ace game will maintain their streak, I might have enjoyed Star Ocean 5 but that could very well change, I could actually end up losing interest in the series as a whole.

Now I don’t want to leave this on a negative note because even though I am Cynical Gaming Blog, I will definitely say that what I have seen based on the trailer has all been good so far, the thing is that trailers have a habit of showcasing only the best parts of the game. Will that huge city I get to fly across be like one of like 6 places I get to visit in the entire game? It could be. Also when the game comes out, the combat might actually suck because we have barely seen anything on it. For all we know, they could be bringing back the dreaded MP Death mechanic, god forbid that ever happens. Ok, sorry I’m being negative again, it’s become a habit of mine, blame the industry. I’ll give the trailer a 10/10 for trying, just try to exceed my expectations for once instead of building up false hope like the cruel cruel industry you are.

Trailer Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwlduVD_aqc

New Painkiller in development – It’s about Fucking Time!

Even more Pain! Yeah that’s right, we’re getting more of it, because they fucking know we want it, no we demand it right fucking now! We have been waiting for nearly a decade to hear information on a new Painkiller game and haven’t had one for the entirety of 8th gen which is a crime against humanity but now, we are finally getting a new Painkiller game but before we overwhelm ourselves with excitement, as you all know, this is Cynical Gaming Blog. Let’s hit y’all with some reality first.

Firstly the original Devs are working on Witchfire so this will be developed by a new development team named Saber, I have never heard of them but they certainly aren’t The Farm 51, nor are they The Astronauts. So the question is, will they be able to deliver the fast paced, old school arena shooting action, where the guns tear up enemies like paper and the enemies surround you in huge numbers? Or will it fail to meet our standards as fans and give us a cookie cutter modern shooter with shit like ADS and other stupid realism features?

Well first of all, we need to know what we are dealing with here, the previous game was a remake of the original Painkiller and Painkiller Battle Out Of Hell, a game that locked more than half of its levels behind DLC and ran on the Unreal Engine which made the game feel slightly different from the original though those differences would only be noticeable to us die hard fans so overall, I wouldn’t really call Hell & Damnation a bad game, it was just an inferior version of Painkiller Black but with prettier graphics which isn’t necessarily a problem, I mean the core gameplay experience was still very much the same.

What I fear is that Saber may not know what Painkiller fans actually want. This is not a game that can be sold on brand power alone, even Hell & Damnation knew this and for this reason, I’m hoping that Saber takes their job seriously and maintain the standards set by the original formula because if they do manage to deliver exactly what it is we want, then there may be hope for 9th gen but they better not fuck this up. Anyone can announce a game but until the goods are delivered, I will reserve my judgment.

Regardless, this announcement shows that we as a community have the power to make things happen. There is only 1 reason why we are getting another Painkiller and it’s because us fans have demanded it for so long and spread awareness of this legendary FPS series all over the web, people have listened, The Astronauts listened and now someone is finally taking action and doing something about it.

Just don’t fuck this up, this brand name has a legacy and it was already bruised by Redemption, do not reopen that wound!!!

Now as for whether it will be a completely new game or another remake is unknown. Perhaps this will be a remake of Overdose, I mean the ending of Hell & Damnation appears to suggest so or perhaps there will be all new levels, who knows? I just hope that they stick to the formula the other games have followed. Hell & Damnation managed to keep the gameplay more-or-less in tact so there is still hope, let’s just hope that Saber are smart enough to realize this, we do not want this brand to be crapped on by dumb modern game design decisions, you hear me!? We want raw old school FPS action, no ADS, no reloading, no sprint button, bunnyhopping, multiple firing modes for every weapon, a compass that tells us where to go, huge open gothic environments that look visually stunning and most importantly, we absolutely must have an awesome metal soundtrack to go with it. Make this happen, bring Painkiller back and do it right or else I will call the police and they will make you wish you were stuck in purgatory when you find out where they’re taking you!

Source

Breaking Down Fanatical’s Mystery Bundle Justification Blog

So it seems after all this time Fanatical has finally figured out that their customers are becoming fed up with mystery boxes and have assembled a blog post with the intent of justifying the business model. To read the article for yourself, click this link.

Now the first thing I want to point out is the tone of this blog and how it starts out by saying words like “exciting” and “fun”. The purpose of this is to create a positive atmosphere in order to condition the reader’s brain to think positive (think We Happy Few), therefore nullifying any potential skepticism. In reality, the only thing this does is emphasize how delusional/vain Fanatical are regarding their products/business practices.

How on earth are mystery bundles fun or exciting? Surely they should at least back up these claims before making them, otherwise it just seems insincere and makes Fanatical look even shadier. My advice to anyone who wants to sell any product is to be informative and sincere about it, put faith in your products and sell things that you would want to purchase, don’t sell worthless shit and paint it as being highly valuable, give the customer what they would want and put a price tag on it that gives you a reasonable return on it while making it competitive with other distribution sites. This is how you build trust, by communicating with integrity.

The problem with this article so far is that it clearly lacks integrity. Why? Because Fanatical are making their own judgement on their business practices, claiming that they are good when that’s not really their decision to make, it’s our decision. Only vain companies label their business practices as “fun” and “exciting”, sadly this is what many companies are nowadays, too vain (or greedy) to admit they are wrong and promise to change their ways.

The article then goes into the topic of legitimacy. For starters, if people think you’re selling keys illegally, why do you even have an audience in the first place? If people don’t care about legitimate keys, they’ll either buy the game from G2A (which is cheaper) or if they’re smart, download the game off of the pirate bay. The fact that there are customers shopping on Fanatical to begin with proves that people are aware that it is legitimate (or at least believe that it is), therefore this part of the blog post is completely unnecessary unless they have something to hide that they don’t want to reveal. All this does is make Fanatical look suspicious for being so defensive over this.

The next point talks about why mystery bundles are a thing to begin with. According to them it is to allow people to discover games they may otherwise never be interested in, isn’t that why Steam has a discovery feature that recommends games to people based on their preferences at no charge nor commitment to buy? If that’s the case then why can’t Fanatical do something similar? Oh wait, it doesn’t generate any income… yeah that pretty much sums it up. Generating income is fine and all but not at the customer’s expense it has to be a fair trade but this isn’t a fair trade because you have no idea what you are getting.

Fanatical try to justify the fairness of mystery bundles by bringing up the price. This is Fanatical’s biggest problem as a company, it only considers the monetary value, not the actual value. I paid less than £.5.00 for Valkyrie Profile 2, Painkiller and Mount And Blade Warband, three of the highest rated games on my website. This proves that monetary value has nothing to do with the value of the game, rather how old the game is, especially when it comes to digital sales. Plus the total value of the bundle is based on the base price, not the sale price. The true value of codes can be found on /r Indie Game Swap, where people trade games for either money or other games, those that take money put a price they are willing to accept for games, same goes for buyers, they offer a price based on how much they are willing to pay for games. This is the true value of these game codes, always check /r indie game swap to make sure you are getting value for money on games from digital distribution sites.

Now I can forgive Fanatical for both their ignorance and their need to make a return on their products but they should not go dictating the value of games, it is not their decision to make, that decision is reserved for us, the consumer. Reviewers such as myself exist for this reason, to help fellow consumers judge the value of games so that they can make an informed decision on whether or not they want to purchase something. Fanatical even state that they do not even know what people are getting in their bundles. How the hell can you not know what it is you are selling people and state that they are getting a fair deal!? It’s madness to even think you are offering a fair deal when you are selling them what might as well be an invisible product.

Another thing they talk a lot about is working together with publishers and apparently making confidential agreements with them to not reveal their games in the mystery boxes. Why would they need to do this? I could put a tin foil hat on about these confidential agreement with publishers here but I’ll abstain for now, I just think that this doesn’t excuse the existence of mystery bundles. If you need to agree to not showing the games, why bother even doing the mystery bundles? Oh yeah… to make tonnes of cash from other people’s potential misery.

You see, the whole concept of mystery bundles is so anti-consumer that is proves just how little Fanatical gives a shit about its customers. I find this quite sad to be honest as they aren’t a massive juggernaut like Steam. Honestly I probably wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t constantly advertise these bundles everywhere in the same way Microsoft tried to push Windows 10 down our throats… almost.

I think Fanatical needs to seriously rethink their business strategy and consider taking these mystery boxes off their site, replacing them with a cost free alternative to finding games but that’s just my take on it. The fact that these mystery bundles sell proves that people are willing to take the risk, however I personally believe that the act of buying these bundles is unhealthy, therefore I highly discourage it. In addition, the purpose of this article isn’t to tell people to boycott Fanatical, rather to see the reality of what mystery bundles are. You could be buying anything, there is absolutely no guarantee that it will be valuable to you at all. I think people deserve to be aware of this before they consider buying anything off of Fanatical so that they can form a stance on this knowledge.

Fanatical aren’t as bad as the Epic Games store, nor are they Origin levels of bad, their insistence on pushing these mystery bundles however is both vain and obnoxious. Just admit that you did the wrong thing Fanatical, admit that people are sick of mystery bundles and do away with them. People will not be upset by this decision, especially if you add a discovery que like steam does, either that or an optional randomize feature for your pick and mix bundles. Problem solved.

Actions speak louder than words and removing mystery bundles and coming up with a more ethical alternative is how Fanatical will gain the respect of their customers and therefore, more sales in the long term. In any case I do commend Fanatical for at least going public about this, even if they did twist the whole thing in their favor. I just hope that their next step is to go about making actual changes instead of excuses and justifications.

Bungie have freed themselves from Activision

I think the video pretty much speaks for itself. It’s a small victory for the gaming community. Hopefully Bungie will make some better games now.

Warcraft 3: Reforged – My Thoughts

So Warcraft 3: Reforged has just been announced and is to be released in 2019. Considering the fact that I have been a big fan of Warcraft 3, I feel that it is important to talk about this remaster.

Before I talk about Warcraft 3: Reforged, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, Activision. Warcraft 3: Reforged is obviously going to be published by Activision and as a result I will be boycotting the game, I suggest everybody else does the same.

In any case, after taking a look at the remaster, it seems that the top down cinematics are going to be replaced with fully CGI cutscenes which is cool. I will enjoy watching these on Youtube to see those glorious moments once again but better looking.

One thing that does bother me however is that many of the voices aren’t returning as is hinted by Arthas being played by Patrick Seitz like he is in World Of Warcraft. I have nothing against Patrick Seitz, he’s a great voice actor but it does concern me that the Dreadlord’s voice cast will have changed.

Tichondrius, Varimathras, Balnazzar and Mal’ganis had great voices in the original but in World Of Warcraft they sound a bit too generic for my tastes… except Balnazzar of course. I really hope that Paul Eiding keeps his role as Varimathras and whoever voiced Tichondrius and Mal’ganis keep their roles as well. They could just use the old voice files if they need to. It just won’t be the same without the original voice cast.

Another thing that bothers me is the story itself. So far it seems ok but I am concerned about any potential retcons occurring. I really hope that Blizzard don’t shoehorn their WOW bullshit in this game, it needs to stay pure and true to the original lore or I will be even more pissed off with them than I already am, just leave Warcraft 3 alone Blizzard… please!!!

Anyways with that aside, I want to talk about Battle.net and what the future may hold for it. You see, Warcraft 3 Battle.net has been around for a long time now and this could be the end for it. Just imagine for a moment what could happen to Warcraft 3 Battle.net when Reforged comes out, the servers might actually become deserted, let that sink in for a minute.

I wonder what Reforged Battle.net will be like, will it be yet another anarchists paradise like the original? Or will Blizzard finally add moderation to the game? Regardless one thing is for certain, the elitists will be back, trash talk will happen and it’s going to end badly whatever happens, it’s online gaming for heaven’s sake.

Still, Warcraft 3 Battle.net’s anarchy did come with some benefits, for starters, you didn’t have to worry about being banned for saying anything that would offend someone, you had to be a man and suck it up. There’s no safe zone on Warcraft 3 Battle.net and it should stay that way if you ask me. Moderators are always problematic in both games and forums, give us our goddamn freedom of speech for heaven’s sake. Regardless, even with moderators, the game will still have those annoying elitists that are like “Look at this guy, he’s 10 – 13… hahahaha what a shit noob” and with moderators prowling around, the ability to fight back against these remarks will be removed. I see this as a bad thing.

It’s come to the point where I feel as if nothing good can come out of Blizzard now, even if it is a remake of one of my favorite games of all time, all it serves to do is prove that games aren’t as good as they used to be and they need to compensate by re-releasing older games and tarting them up, welcome to the era of paying for games you played years ago just to play them all over again, why should I buy Warcraft 3 again? I already played it and quite frankly I don’t need to see it get tarted up.

Eventually every game will get a remaster… yes even Valkyrie Profile 2 but what then? What will happen when every single game is remastered? Will they remaster them again? Who knows? Regardless, I can’t wait for this era of remasters to end, not because I don’t want these classics to be immortalized, quite the contrary actually, I want them all to be remastered as fast as possible so that once every single game has been remastered, we can move on to playing games that are new and fresh… oh wait, games like that don’t exist anymore.

Call me cynical if you want (it’s literally what my blog is all about) but I don’t really feel any excitement or anticipation for this game, in fact you could actually say that this announcement has made me feel even more upset about the state of the Warcraft series as it merely serves as a reminder to how the series fell apart to begin with.

As such, Warcraft 3: Reforged’s announcement feels like I’m attending a wake at a funeral that should have happened back in 2008… yes I’m talking about the year Wrath Of The Lich King was released because as much as I despise World Of Warcraft, it wasn’t really all that bad until Wrath Of The Lich King came out. I cannot stress just how much of a love/hate relationship I have for this undying series, it’s ironically no different from Arthas’ descent into madness and that moment the song “Invincible” played at the end of Wrath Of The Lich King, Arthas was already dead the moment he took up frostmorne, just like Warcraft was already dead the moment they released World Of Warcraft and while World Of Warcraft was tame at first, it was a deadly poison that slowly crippled the series like a form of cancer.

Blizzard essentially walked the same path as the very character they created, Arthas was once a paladin who only wanted to protect his people, much like Blizzard were a team of developers who actually made good quality games but both of them descended into madness. Sure you could argue that Blizzard didn’t murder anybody in the process but they did whatever they legally possibly could to make all of their fans miserable and fuck the consumer in the asshole.

The fact that Blizzard partnered with Activision really speaks for itself to be honest, in the words of Arthas in Warcraft 3, all I have to say to Blizzard Entertainment is: “You are past redemption”.

Update: Still busy, Need a new TV for Screencapping too.

Well it has finally happened, My Digilogic CRT TV died last night. All I can say is thank god it wasn’t my computer. In any case, the loss of my CRT has set me back a little. Not that it makes any difference anyways as I am busy trying to deal with home refurbishments at the moment and planning on moving, hence why I have been busy recently and unable to work on much content. Almost all of my games have been packed away into storage and soon, many of my consoles will join them as well as my PC.

So I will have to get a new TV, probably an HD one, the problem is that up until now, I have always recorded via composite cables, I have never recorded via HDMI which leaves me with some unanswered questions that I will need to solve once I get my HDTV. Can I still record from my PS2/WII/PS3/Xbox 360 with an HD TV using composite cables? Is it possible for me to put composite cable splitters in a HDMI/AV converter and still record footage that way? I hope so because otherwise I’ll probably have a bit of trouble recording footage and who knows, I may end up needing to get an elgato.

Other than that, I may still have time to do the occasional stream or two but right now I don’t want to get started on a review project since I have a lot on my plate right now. The main reason for this update was to announce the death of my CRT TV, this means that I’m going to have a really difficult time playing Time Crisis without being able to use a lightgun… oh well, I’m pretty shit at that game anyways so it doesn’t matter really.

So all in all, apologies for the lack of content recently, it’s bothering me as much as it’s bothering you guys, if not more but I have to get all this stuff sorted out so that my mind is cleared, that way I can put my all into it.

Warriors Orochi 4’s launch price on PC is an insult. Koei Tecmo are ripping off Musou fans.

So there’s this game I’ve been excited for wanting to try called Warriors Orochi 4. As someone who shows an interest in 3D beat em ups, I cannot simply ignore musou games as the warriors series shaped the 3D beat em ups we know today and as such I want to play more of them to see if I can actually get invested in the genre or not.

Many consider musou games to be cheap, throwaway titles built around catharsis. Sure they can be entertaining to play but they aren’t exactly known for having much depth/flexibility, they’re just games that let you kill hundreds of cannon fodder with flashy attack strings. Put simply, musou games are no different from sports games like Fifa in the sense that once you’ve played one of them, you’ve pretty much played all of them, however there is a bit of nuance that slightly differentiates them and as someone who shows interest in 3D beat em ups, I want to see how the genre has grown.

Unfortunately however, Koei Tecmo appears to be a little overconfident with their pricing of Warriors Orochi 4 as they have decided to price the PC version at £49.49… oh but wait, that’s actually a special offer, the base price for Warriors Orochi 4 is a whopping £54.99! Yeah you heard me, they have the audacity to charge the same price of a collectors/deluxe edition for a standard edition game which is insulting to all fans of the series and pretty much everybody who has very little money to spend.

To make matters worse, many people have had salt poured into the wound by having the game run at an abysmal framerate. It appears that people are complaining about the PC port being terrible. When you consider the fact that they have the audacity to charge £54.99 for the game, it’s pretty understandable as to why people are angry about this. Now I understand that the pound has dropped recently and as such, the prices for games are going up (even though the quality is still not up to scratch with the games of sixth generation) and as such, we are forced to accept higher prices as a standard now. However, I have noticed that these prices fluctuate between £45.00, £50.00 and now with the release of Warriors Orochi 4, £55.00… all for standard edition games with no bonuses of any kind.

Of course this doesn’t stop Koei Tecmo from selling a separate season pass on top of the base game for an additional £24.99 because apparently, paying £54.99 isn’t enough for us to be allowed to purchase a complete game. So if you’re wondering why I named the site Cynical Gaming Blog, it’s because of bullshit like this.

Welcome to modern gaming, where customers end up paying more for less, developers work longer hours for less pay and publishers are practically drowning in money to the point that they claim to need more money in order to resurface… except it just ends up making things worse and now they’re drowning in even more money.

Fuck the gaming industry.

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards Live – Watch me get my ass kicked by a kids game + Update

Update: Sadly something came up recently and as a result,  the site is going to be on hiatus for a bit longer… I’ll try to get back to making content ASAP.

Nintendo want you to pay Ransom before they take your online privileges hostage

Today for the very first time, Nintendo are giving their customers the option to pay off their ransom in advance for 12 months… only for them to demand more money after that 12 months is up.

Do you know what subscription fees remind me of? Fucking Ganondorf! Every time Link beats his ass, he comes back every single time and Link has to kill him again… only for Ganondorf to come back and rinse and repeat… it’s a never-ending ordeal for the customer to have to pay ransom money to free their online privileges from the hands of these filthy console manufactures.

You know what? These companies are more than just manufacturers now… but what else can we call them? In any case lets change the subject. I’m going to give y’all a little history lesson. Back in the day, there was a wonderful little game called Diablo which came with a free service known as Battle.net. Battle.net is an absolutely wonderful service, just play Warcraft 3 online for a couple of minutes and you’ll see what I mean… oh wait.

Putting Warcraft 3 aside, Battle.net allowed players to connect with people all over the world and play together in a co-operative game of Diablo. As long as you had working internet, you could dive straight in to the wonderful world of online gaming. This was back in 1996 and all I can say is that Diablo is one hell of a game to play with friends, I highly recommend trying it.

Fast forward to the year 2002 and oh no… a console known as the Xbox received its own online service in the form of Xbox Live. Thankfully, the Xbox was pretty shit back in the sixth generation. Everybody was too busy playing all the exclusives on the PS2 to notice this shitty system.

The Xbox is hands down the worst console ever invented… now this may seem like harsh words considering the fact that the Phillips CDI alongside many other shitty consoles existed beforehand but the Xbox is by far the most criminal as is was the first console in history to successfully hold people’s online privileges to ransom. Many had tried to emulate Xbox’s paid subscription service models such as SEGA but none of them succeeded. For some reason, Microsoft were able to not only make a paid subscription service work but they also managed to muster up the balls to give us all the finger, because Microsoft are untouchable, they have a monopoly on Operating systems… mainly because PC gaming isn’t big enough yet… why? Because people keep playing these shitty consoles, that’s why.

I’m not telling you all to kneel before the PC master race, rather I’m telling you all to use common sense. Take a look at how all the bullshit we see in this industry started. Did it start with Activision? Nope, Activision invested in a lot of popular IP’s, yes but they didn’t have the means to exploit people the way they do now. EA? Nope, they may have milked countless sports games but they proved that they were capable of bringing us top quality games in the past such as Hot Wheels Turbo Racing and the Need For Speed series.

So what is the route of all evil you ask? That’s simple. Microsoft. Microsoft are hands down the absolute worst company in the gaming industry… or they would have been had Activision and EA not taken their place.

You see, because of how much leeway we, the consumer have given to these companies, they think that they can get away with robbing us in broad daylight. Just look at Sony for example:

Standard Price Of Kingdom Come Deliverance:

Sony Price Of Kingdom Come Deliverance:

That’s £14.00 that Sony have stolen from every single person that has purchased Kingdom Come Deliverance and nobody bats an eye.

Ok so for all you idiots out there who think I’m exaggerating, sure Sony aren’t really thieves but from a moral standpoint you could argue that their actions are almost equivalent to that of thievery.

You could say that Sony are scam artists but that would be an understatement, I believe the term “thieves” better describes Sony in terms of how immoral their actions as a company are.

Now I have played every single Sony console, something I cannot say about the other two leading console manufacturers these days though I made damn well sure I got my PS4 second-hand the moment I heard that Sony were getting their own online paywall, courtesy of the Xbox One’s terrible launch.

You see, if it wasn’t for the terrible launch of the Xbox One, there is no way that Sony would have gotten away with taking people’s online privileges hostage but considering the fact that the Xbox One would only function with an online connection and the fact that it tried to deprive us of our right to deny publishers our money by purchasing second-hand games, Sony’s console was arguably the lesser of the two evils, this gave Sony a chance to do what they would never have gotten away with in seventh gen, taking people’s online privileges hostage at a price that would continue to rise as it grew more and more accepted.

It has come to the point now that we as consumers do not question this bullshit, rather we accept these things as the norm. We might have dealt a massive blow against lootboxes but we still have a lot of unfinished business to take care of. We mustn’t tolerate these online paywalls any longer… but how can we do that? That’s simple. It’s called having principles.

Step 1: Never give Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo any of your money

Step 2: Never encourage others to purchase any of their products unless it’s available second-hand

Step 3: Buy a 1080 TI, an Intel I7 processor, a power supply and a motherboard (be sure to ask an expert on which motherboard/power supply to get because you’ll need them to be compatible with the rest of your PC) and at least 8gb ram.

Step 4: If you don’t already have a HDD or a case for your PC then get one, you can either put it all together yourself or go to your local computer shop and ask them to fit it for you (they love this because they get your money for doing an extremely easy job)

There you go, now you have a good enough PC to play all the games you could ever want up to eighth gen consoles. It may not be cheap at first but in the long-term, it will save you a lot of money and will give you a lot more in return.

Anyways back to the history lesson. After Sony’s success with their online subscription service, Nintendo decided to follow suit as well.

Quite frankly it saddens me to see how pathetic Nintendo have been in recent years, I used to enjoy playing Nintendo games on their consoles a lot but it would seem that they are now a shadow of their former self. Not only are they arrogant enough to believe that they can get away with taking our online privileges ransom but they are also stupid enough to be the last major console manufacturer to actually do it.

Oh how the mighty have fallen… the Nintendo that crushed SEGA back in the console wars during the 90’s would be ashamed at the state they are now, back then, Nintendo were fighters, they were the Bruce Lee of the gaming industry, now they’re a bunch of clowns that forgot to put their makeup on.

Now I know that I declared Nintendo dead a while back… but somebody has brought Nintendo back from the dead. Is this the Lich King? Are the Dreadlords behind all this? Only one thing is for certain. Nintendo need to be put back in their graves and the only way to do this is to stop buying their systems… unless it’s second hand of course.

We need to stop being a bunch of monkeys and start sticking up for our rights, I’m talking to all of you people who continue to support these console manufacturers, stop being a bunch of simpletons and start using your bloody brain or your ignorance will doom us all!

As contemptful as this may sound, these words come from someone who is frustrated at our industry. My enemies are the console manufacturers and the publishers, not the consumer… but if you stand in the way then you’re just another obstacle preventing me, and many other gaming enthusiasts from making progress, just think of how frustrating it is to have to see this bullshit happen without being contested, then you will understand why I am being such an asshole… because sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

 

Valkyrie Profile Port Coming In 2018? Seems Likely

A trailer has been released today for a port of a game that was released over 10 years ago, portception? Well it wouldn’t be the first time. The good news is that this may be a PC port and that could mean that it is immortalized digitally on Steam/GOG.

Now you’re probably wondering why I am calling it a port and not a remake. Well that’s simple, they re-used the exact same title logo from the PSP version. Needless to say it’s going to be the exact same game. Plus Square-Enix have a track record for glorifying ports of games.

So what does this mean for us? Well it’s difficult to say really unless we know for sure which platform it is going to be released on. It could be released on mobile for all we know. If it is released on PC then it means that the PC crowd can give the series a go… though I’m not sure how well they’ll take it to be honest.

Valkyrie Profile was a very rough diamond. It was filled to the brim with flaws despite its great potential. I have already covered all of its issues in my Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria Review and as such if you have yet to play this game and are interested in playing this port before release, I highly recommend using a walkthrough. I personally recommend watching Crimeinpartner’s Let’s play of the game as it will cover all the things you will have to do. Alternatively you can skip the game entirely and watch the LP for the story because the original game can be a hassle to play through. If you want a non-commentary playthrough of the game, you can watch this walkthrough.

Whatever you decide to do is up to you. Just know that if you’re interested in playing Valkyrie Profile 2 then you must understand the story of the first game to get the most out of the experience. This could be a great opportunity to get into the series should it actually be released over in the US and Europe.

As for whether long time fans of the series should fork over money for this, I’m not too sure. After doing a bit of research, it turns out that tri-Ace are hiring students, possibly for a new project but we do not know much yet. It could be a Valkyrie Profile game but I highly doubt it. I think that they will probably be hiring them to make mobile games considering the circumstances. In any case, I highly doubt a Valkyrie Profile 3 will be happening any time soon, however this port’s sales could influence a possible Valkyrie Profile 3 in the future.

I just don’t think now it the right time though. Tri-Ace took a serious beating from critics in recent years, their game’s sales have dropped considerably since Star Ocean Till The End Of Time. I can safely say that tri-Ace won’t be taking half as many risks as they used to which is a shame but I’m sure they will deliver something of value to us when the time comes. I enjoyed Star Ocean 5 personally so I still have hope for future tri-Ace titles.

I can say however that the mobile game’s success might bring a glimmer of hope to the series as Sqaure-Enix might be convinced to part with more money if they see a potential for the series. I highly doubt that will happen though, Square-Enix are pretty stingy when it comes to funding their third-party IP’s and their recent port of Chrono Trigger hasn’t been received well.

Lets just hope that a Valkyrie Profile 2 port will be just around the corner and that we might eventually get a Valkyrie Profile 3.