Digital vs Disk

disk

This has been a debate for years in gaming, and just to be honest at some point the question will be moot and companies will simply require digital downloads and disk wont be an option. However for me i still prefer the disk whenever possible. Part of the reason for that is honestly its rarely cheaper for the digital version. Another issue is its usually quicker to install off disk for me than it is download an entire game. On the flip side digital is pretty convenient, I don’t have to wait in line at the store, which on midnight releases is pretty much  a blessing.  I also don’t have to worry about my disk getting scratched by the kids or my cat ( yes that happened once) Now it sounds like digital is the way to go, but here is another issue for me. With suck limited space I spend more time uninstalling and reinstalling than I would like, and on rare occasion companies remove games from the stores, which means i can’t reinstall said game. All that being said the question really has many ways of looking at it, and as i said at the start eventually it will be the only way to buy games. Once again thanks for joining me, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

What I hope FF7 Remake keeps

Final Fantasy 7

This is just a list of things I hope the remake of Final Fantasy 7 keeps. Hopefully you will add to it some at the bottom.

First and foremost i REALLY would like them to keep the chocobo breeding/racing portion. Not that it was all that in depth or hard by todays standards, but 1997 me couldn’t get enough of it. The feeling of finally getting the gold chocobo is a feeling i will never forget.

It goes without saying i’d love the materia system to stick around. It was simple yet complicated in all the right ways. Figuring out that the counter materia would counter with a command materia like deathblow was great.

The enemy skill materia was another one that as a kid maybe I under utilized a little to much but playing through again later I thought was way more fun than it should be.

The last thing I hope stays is the hidden characters. I know, it seems like a weird thing to have to say but with the extended FF7 universe I legitimately  feel like Vincent and Yuffie will become standard recruited people as opposed to people you had to earn. Not that either was exactly overly powerful or anything of the sort, but it was still getting Vincent out of his coffin and yuffie to actually join you. I’m sure i will update this at some point, but until then thank for joining me and may the gaming gods grant you glory.

Elite Advice For A Dangerous Launch

ED Galexy

With the launch of Elite Dangerous tomorrow ( June 27th) I figured a lot of people may need some advice. So as I sit here sipping on some vodka and orange soda watching how I met your mother let me help you get started. Full disclosure, i have played the X box one version and will be playing the PS4 version.

First, big Rule number one, after you buy a new ship or upgrade your first ship called the Sidewinder, pay close attention to the ship rebuy cost. Rebuy is basically insurance. I’m pretty sure its equal to 5% of your ship total cost, which is a lot better than buying a new ship with upgrades. Last think you want to do is blow up a 20 million dollar ship by slamming into the mail slot of a station and having to restart from the beginning, and yes that has happened to people.

This next piece of advice sounds like common sense, but do the tutorial stuff before you start the game. The controls can be quite complicated and the game has one of the steepest learning curves  I have ever encountered in a game.

Don’y be ashamed to check YouTube or google for help with making money, exploring or whatever it is you choose to do. The below video i from one of the bigger names within the Elite Dangerous community and has tons of advice to give a well as various videos about the lore within the game. The video is long but you may not need the whole thing.

 

While we are on the subject of figuring stuff out, when you first get your Sidewinder is the perfect time to experiment. Play with the boost, shoot random ship try landing on a planet or whatever. Until you start upgrading it the rebuy cost is actually free, so no harm no foul.

While money is important, some would say the most important, aspect of the game i tend to side with the idea that you should play the game however you choose. Whether its exploring, mining, killing random stuff whatever  happens to tickle your fancy the money will come. Sure there are ways to make it come faster and its fine to do that as well. My personal plan i to kill  ton of stuff until i can get a proper exploration ship, but that doesn’t make it right, simply makes it right for me.

My final tidbit of advice for all you fresh new commanders is simple. Have fun, help people where you can, and don’t be afraid to try new things. I thought for sure trading would be for me, turns out I like combat and exploring. As always thanks for joining me and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Green Lantern

gl1 Ugh, this one hurts like getting a snapping turtle shoved up my ass. I’m 98% sure this film is the reason Green Lantern won’t appear in the upcoming Justice League (JLA) movie this November even though he’s been in the Justice League since it’s original inception. Green Lantern- Jon Stewart in particular- is my second favorite DC hero. What I love is that unlike most comic book heroes, Green Lantern does not pertain to one singular person but several diverse characters: Hal Jordan, Jon Stewart, Guy Gardener, Kyle Raynor, Simon Baz, Killowog, Arsya, and hundreds of others in a universe full of rich lore. Ideally, Green Lantern could be an amazing film franchise; Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films proved that there is a market for cosmic themed superhero films and can be well done. That being said, this movie has bright spots in my opinion both as a critic and a fan of the comics but what’s terrible murders this movie. The film follows the story of Hal Jordan, ace air force pilot and smart ass who is trying to live up to the memories of his father who died in a flight accident when he was a kid. One night, hes sees what he takes to be as a meteor crash or some kind of aircraft crash nearby him so he goes to investigate. He comes upon a mortally wounded purple alien named Abin-Sur, a great warrior of the Green Lantern Corps; he reveals to Hal that his ring guided him to him, so he can take his place. Hal takes the ring and Abin dies, before handing him his ring and a green lantern, instructing him to “speak the oath”. After he does he’s taken to planet Oa and brought into the Green Lantern Corps. The lanterns are intergalactic peacekeepers given rings forged from the concentrated willpower from throughout the universe with the ability to construct there thoughts into reality, fly, have access to knowledge collected from throughout the known universe, with the ability to travel in deep space. Hal discovers an ancient Entity of fear called Parallax was responsible for Abin’s death and has his sights set to destroy the Corps while being signaled by mad, mutated scientist Hector Hammond. So Hal has to face his fears and fight this seemingly unstoppable force and become the green lantern.

First, the positives. Overall, the acting is fairly good. Ryan Reynolds tries his ass off to pull the part of Jordan off. The supporting cast of the late Michael Clarke Duncan as Killowag, Geoffrey Rush as Toma ree, and Mark Strong as none other than Thaal Sinestro- one of DC’s most infamous villains ( which the after-cred scene reveals) are the best part of the movie. Problem is these actors would’ve shined but the script isn’t good. Its condensed to shit, the villain layout is wrong, and it tries way too hard to be other, more popular superhero flicks. The CGI is an atrocity, it’s everywhere and it shows; especially in Jordan’s costume and Parallax…and the race car. Oh the race car scene makes you want to drink.  I don’t recommend this movie if you want to learn about Green Lantern. Because of this movie, I rushed to find out more about the character. If you are interested in some epic lantern action I suggest Green Lantern: Secret origin by Geoff Johns or Blackest Night: Green Lantern. I’ll be covering some lantern books soon in the near future so stay tuned and let the gaming gods be with you all

 

 

 

Snes classic

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Nintendo has officially confirmed the Super Nintendo Classic is a thing to be launched this year and will include the never released Star Fox 2. More info can be found here.

http://comicbook.com/gaming/2017/06/25/snes-classic-edition-confirmed-closed-door-events-gamespot-managers/

Lets just hope this isn’t as limited as the NES classic, something many of my friends want but only I seem to have. The 30 games are nice and the system and all its parts work just as well as you would hope and i expect nothing less from the SNES Classic. As always thanks for joining me, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Open World Games

 

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Open world games are pretty much always full of places to visit, things to do, people to meet and hey usually I try to kill them. But do they need an actual story? Normally I would say yes, but there are exceptions to the rule. Nobody would expect Sim City to have a story attached to it for example. These games are also usually filled with places to visit, many of which most players never take the time to find. I have easily over 200 hours into Skyrim and I know for a fact I haven’t seen most of the world. I can really say the same thing for any Bethesda game. But they have amazing stories with full fledged worlds to explore and a mission to accomplish. But could there be an open world game that just dropped you in and stopped caring what you did? I’m aware of a couple but the only one I ever played was Elite Dangerous and that is a pretty different breed all on its own. As always thanks for joining me and please comment a few games that may fit this,and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Marvel Omega Heroes review

Marvel

Marvel Omega heroes is a free to play game where you take control of one of the many heroes  to play through a story i won’y ruin on you. The game play itself is quite similar to the Diablo games. Your hero will gain experience as you kill enemies traditionally found in comics like thug with a gun or any other cliche thing you want to name them since they don’t get names, just like in the comics. After  while of brutally beating up normal people with mutant powers that should probably blow up most of the city you get to fight the more mainstream people like the Green Goblin or the human laser whom i had never heard of. I point that out not to make a joke, but because they did a good job adding in characters both good and bad that most people have never heard of like Moon Knight or Nova that comic fans will recognize but never really get to see n games or movies. The graphics are nice and the sound is actually really well done to the point that if you stand around to long doing nothing your hero will let you know and many of them will actually speak to other heroes when you pass them in the street or at  a headquarters. Its a fun little game with plenty of heroes to play as and is absolutely worth a shot even if it were a full priced game and it fits  a niche that doesn’t exactly have a ton of options. As always thanks for joining me and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dark souls 2…oh my

ds2 Damn. Just damn. Much has been said about the Dark Souls trilogy from From Software- some say invigorating challenge, other say total bullshit; I say a little bit of both. Dark Souls I cannot say much about but I got my ass kicked all the way to level 160 in the sequel so let’s go with it. Graphically, it’s beautiful. The scenery is breathtaking and easily sunken into with all of it’s hidden nooks and crannies. Speaking of nooks and crannies, every souls player knows that there’s a threat behind every twist and turn; sometimes you can overcome the evils that can spring forth, but unless you dodge, dodge some more, keep a ass load of Estus Flasks at hand and can hit like a locomotive, you will probably die. In fact, you will die anyway. Many, many, times. My advice to most newbs- choose the sorcery class for your character because its a hard start but damn it becomes epic later on. I do have one major issue with this game, regardless of the difficulty. If you played the other 2 games in the trilogy or Bloodborne, you came to love, hate and respect the bosses. Many of the bosses of Dark Souls 2 feel dull or simply mob bosses that aren’t so much a challenge but a royal rat vanguard pain in the ass! Another complaint I’ve heard is many of the bosses bare a striking resemblance to those in the previous game. Overall, it’s a decently fun game and well, it’s dark souls, but its not the best of the series.

4 K gaming

XB1X

First and foremost let me start by saying this, earlier this year u went from a low end 1080 set to a low-medium end 4K. But is the graphical upgrade worth it? Yes and no honestly. My first system i ever played on was an intelivision, a system most people seem to have never even heard of and for a time considered the original Nintendo entertainment system to be the epitome of graphical design. For me graphics while awesome are not exactly important. That being said even with games i played before tossed onto the ps4 saw a definite improvement, and when added to the ps4 pro there was an even greater improvement. That being said, i am also one of the few if not only people i know in person with a 4k t.v. so marketing a system as 4K to me seems like a rather large mistake. The PlayStation 4 pro is an amazing system that I definitely but only if you already have the 4k t.v. to go with it, otherwise it seems rather pointless and  have no doubt the new xbox will fall into that same category.  See for now 4K is largley a niche market that most people simply can not take advantage of so marketing a system specifically for that seems like a sure way to lower sales. That being said it wont be more than a few more years anyway until 4K becomes common, especially considering more than a couple companies already have an 8K t.v. in development. (and they are expensive as hell)  4k gaming is without a doubt the future and it is coming fast, but we are not quite there yet despite what many believe. As always thanks for joining me, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

30 days of night

30 days 2  30 days  It’s summer in Scranton so what better to keep me cool than to bundle up with my trusty box fan, pour myself a cold drink, and thank the gaming gods I’m not being attacked by pissed off vampires of the non-sparkly persuasion with a great graphic novel. By the title and pics you can tell I mean 30 Days of Night.

This series has spawned multiple graphic novels, full on novels, and a movie in 2007 I personally consider well underrated; this all being said, I’m going to talk about the first book that started it all. 30 days of night takes place in Barrow, Alaska, where once a year it is night time for a full thirty days; and a group of vampires, hearing about this naturally phenomenon journey there to enjoy themselves consequence free of the sun. I love the vampires in 30 days; they are cold, ruthless, terrifying beasts that vaguely have any human characteristics any more, just the craving for blood. Book one revolves around the dwindling amount of towns people trying to outlive the monstrous vampires until the sun comes up. Our main characters are Eben and Stella, a husband and wife at ends with each other; Eben is the town’s sheriff. The vampires systematically shut the town off from the rest of the world by killing there power, stealing cell phones and burning them miles away and in one cruel swoop slaughter a majority of the town. They are ridiculously strong, swift, and act like bullet sponges; the only way to kill these bastards is to decapitate them or expose them to either ultraviolet light or the sun. Eben, Stella, and the other survivors go about for weeks playing cat and mouse with the creatures, moving from one abandoned house to another, crawling out of uncertain sanctuary for food and water, dealing with each other and there claustrophobic predicament. One moment that personally haunted me is during a visit to a quik mart for food, Eben hears a quiet sobbing in one of the isles and finds a little girl crying over the bodies of who could’ve been her parents. She turns towards Eben, exposing her large black eyes and bloody shark tooth grin before attacking him. Perhaps as cruel as there viciously brutal attacks, is that the vampires mockingly use the survivors humanity against them. Eben does bring himself to kill the girl but not without regret. For the climax, one the final night the lead vampire decides to burn Barrow to the ground to ensure no survivors and the continuation of there secret existence; Eben is drawn into a final choice: give into fear and let Stella and a few others die or sacrifice himself for them and become the monster to kick there asses out of Barrow once and for all.

The art of 30 days is the highlight of the series. Its hauntingly distorted and blurry, making the monsters seem like you are seeing them in your worst nightmares. The book is short and the writing isn’t very deep but the art carries it. The movie does a fair job of bringing out some depth while staying pretty close to the source material. I recommend this to the people who love vampires, want to get into comics but aren’t into superheroes, or love creepy ass artwork. So in conclusion, stay cool this summer and be glad you aren’t hiding from vampires.