Category: Opinion

The Hunger

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In a quest to find my own literally voice and advance as a writer, I’ve had the pleasure of reading some pretty unexpectedly good books such as This is What you Want, This is What you Get after meeting the author and being able to help our mutual friend Billy Kraser ( Sticks:A tool in Time saga). Nonstop Amazon recommended this book to me and finally, I admit, because of the price and the alluring cover I decided to check it out, not knowing a damn thing about what it was about. Sometimes you can judge a book by it’s cover.

How many of us are fimilair with the story of the Donner Party? An early American tragedy of a ill fated journey of pioneers who got lost in the midst of a brutal winter during the 1840’s and resorted to cannibalism in a failed resort to stay alive. But what if there was something more to it, something sinister and supernatural? Is it a disease? Is a ancient curse in the untamed woods? Is it sheer madness that causes the Donner Party to turn on each other as they are stalked through this perilous journey while the threat swells from inside.

I have to say, I loved this book and found it a very cool read. It’s a slow burn kind of horror read which I enjoyed because there is some really creepy moments and a ending that had me on edge. The different characters are well developed and a few times I was surprised at there fates. The monsters are ambiguous, somewhere between the fabled wendigo and a Deadite from Evil Dead, but the story does well at making you wonder what form the “creatures” actually take.  Alma Katsu, the author, has a nice flow to her writing and I give her credit for making a period piece that feels legitimate but not pretentious as some would. In the end, if you want a good solid horror book that builds with good characters and a cool premise, I highly recommend this book. I’ll drop a link for it on Amazon and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Stargirl trailer 1

It’s pretty impressive how large of a scope the CW’s DC universe but over the past few years I’ve wondered why who asked for shows devoted to Black Lightning and Batwoman and I have to wonder why Stargirl. The trailer looks alright as their answer to the MCU’s Captain Marvel but it also looks kinda meh. While I’m drastically out of sync with what’s going in there universe, it’ll be interesting to see how this new addition plays out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Stardew Valley Multiplayer Update

So as much as I have played Statdew Valley I never really experienced the multiplayer aspect until recently. Me and my daughter played most of the weekend. I have mixed feelings about it but they are mostly positive.

Playing with a friend does split much of the work and makes gather resources, mining and farming much easier.

It does sadly make buying anything 2-4 times more expensive depending on who you are playing with because all tools and storage backpacks need to be bought for everyone. That is really my only complaint but I understand why it is that way, because it needs to be.

The quality of life improvments that came along with it were fantastic tho. The ability to see what belongs in a community bundle from your inventory and stacking things like chest or crab pots in your inventory is a godsend. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to improvements made, but admittedly they are mostly fantastic.

My only othet complaint is even with a wired connection we would occasionally drop our connection. Probably once an hour or so on a bad day and not at all on others. Despite those minor complaints as much as I love Stardew Valley alone, with a friend is my favorite way to play. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

More Game of the Decade Candidates

Here we are with my last 5 picks. I want to remind everyone that if your game of choice isn’t on here I may not have played it, and just because a game is on here doesn’t mean I enjoyed it, I just think it caused enough of change in gaming it deserves it. I actually don’t like many of the games on my own list. Like this next one.

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Fortnite Battle Royale, this game gets a lot of love and hate, some deserved some not. Like it or not tho this game was and is huge and because of what it has done for gaming and esports, there is no denying its right to be in the conversation.

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While for me GTAV is the definition of what NOT to do online and is probably the most toxic online environment ever created there is no denying its single-player story is amazing and online is loved by millions, so really who am I to complain? What list would be complete without it?

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Yea I am putting Red Dead Redemption 2 right after GTAV, and both belong here for basically the same reason. Admittedly Rockstar knows what they are doing with these games. Huge open worlds with plenty to do, amazing characters beautiful graphics and setting sales records.

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Persona 5 is an amazing RPG, and oddly the only game on this list that could potentially be considered for game of the decade twice with Persona 5 Royal coming out eventually. But this game can easily take 100 hours to beat and there is content in New Game plus that is unavailable in the first playthrough. The game is beautiful and each persona has a life of its own, the characters all feel like their own people with problems of their own for you to get to know and experience. Any fan of RPGs needs to try this one out.

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Kerbal Space Program. This may be the only list you find this game on, and I am putting it here because honestly until this I had never played a game like it, and now there are various games like it on mobile or under development. The ability to build rockets and planes and stations and whatever you can imagine is amazing and fun, and this may be the only game where failure is not only an option, it is the best way to learn and to learn about real physics and such. For me, this is what an educational game should be.

So what do you guys think? Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Game of the Decade Candidates

Many of you remember the other day I talked about the game of the decade and how I didn’t think you could truly pick one and the best you could truly do is debate it. So here are 5 picks for me today and I will have 5 more tomorrow, and we can discuss them, or you can just call me a moron. So enjoy in no real order, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

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The original Dark Souls, released in 2011 and despite the many, many issues it had it changed the way many people play games. Sure Demon Souls came first but Dark Souls really made it popular. Now the style wouldn’t be perfected until much later, but this game deserves to be mentioned.

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Dark Souls deserved to be mentioned for bringing a series to life really, Bloodborne deserves it for perfecting that series imo. The lore, the art style the combat itself. It is all steller. Nothing about this game is unfairly hard, but it is hard. Simple mistakes will get you killed time and time again, but good timing and situational awareness will get you through every time.

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Spider-Man is on the list not because I think it would ever win this honor, but because it deserves to be mentioned simply for what it finally gave us. A Spider-Man that felt like Spider-Man. The web-swinging was great, the story was pretty amazing. It was pretty nice to see real superpowers could be done right.

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The Witcher 3 is a game I am well known to not be a fan of but I can’t deny the impact it has had. From Netflix shows to awards. the game is hundreds of hours in content, the lore is out of this world and speaking of the world, it is one of the most alive in gaming.download (2)

I know I am playing with numbers here a little bit by counting Minecraft here because it was initially released in 2009 for some people but the official release date by Majong was 2011. But it has been released on every console (and PC) so I feel like, for a blog, we can cut it some slack and since it has has been one of the highest streamed and played games in that entire time period, we can talk about it.

So let me know what you guys think, and until tomorrow when I give you my last 5, may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Zombie Army 4 , 101 trailer

Zombie Army Trilogy is one of Savior and I’s favorite co-op games, so I was shocked how in depth the fourth game overhauls the classic. So far, I’m hyped for the new customizable weapons and gory new enemy types. Besides that, I’m glad we are getting more varied locales and the game looks to be keeping the classic Grindhouse feel. This very well might be a birthday surprise to myself this year for sure. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Game of the Decade?

Now I know I am late on this, and honestly if you are looking for what I think that game was just go ahead and click the little X button. I don’t have one listed. How do you rightfully judge that? Overall quality for the time it was released? Overall quality in general? Because it would be quite unfair to compare games in 2011 to games in 2019 directly.

Maybe we simply go by impact on gaming? Because Dark Souls and Minecraft are probably damn near untouchable as is Fortnite which while not the first of its kind it is by far the most influential.

No sadly for me while game of the year I feel can be narrowed down I think you need to just throw a few games into the running for game of the decade and just let people discuss them and figure it out on their own. So here is what I am going to do, in the next few days I will put together a list of 10 games I think are worth being discussed as game of the decade. Then we can discuss those and see what we come up with. So until then, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Code Vein

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For Black Friday this year, I bought myself a game me and a few of my friends have been waiting for. What if you took the beauty and story of a anime and combined it with the gameplay style of a Souls game? Let’s find out.

In Code Vein we awaken as a Remnant in the wake of a brutal vampire war between the Revenants and the Lost., having to piece our memories together. The Revenants are struggling to keep there hunger for blood at bay and maintain there humanity while the Lost are vampires who have mutated into viscous monsters. With your allies Louis, Ios, Mia and Yakumo you have to traverse a broken dystopian odyssey in search of peace and to destroy the cause of the madness…

First, I have to say, I thought originally this game was going to be a Souls ripoff with a anime skin and a few kinks thrown in much like the The Surge or Lords of the Fallen (PS4) felt, but that quickly goes away. This game and how you approach combat is extremely versatile because of the Blood Codes, which is series of attacks and abilities based on another character where you can mix and match.  Your partners also provide extra attack power and defense with pretty decent AI so they thankfully do there job. What really sells the game is the art style and the overall story which is pretty captivating. A flaw the game has with all the options and having a optional partner can feel a bit overwhelming and the game can feel a bit too easy with few difficulty spikes that are pretty easy to overcome. Another minor issue I have is while impressive to look at, none of the bosses really stand out and for the most part they go down fairly easy. In the end, Code Vein is a pretty epic game with a good story and extremely versatile gameplay that I definitely recommend, especially if you want to wade into Souls type games. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Space Force Logo makes me laugh

Now this isn’t my normal stuff, but O have to admit the new “Space Force” logo made me laugh. When I first saw it I figured Hollywood was going to sue the American government because come on, thats the damn Star Fleet logo. Clearly other people saw it too. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdk97/trump-revealed-the-logo-for-space-force-and-its-just-the-star-trek-logo?utm_source=dmfb

This got my mind going a bit tho. How long do I have to wait for my offical phaser? I’m an American, we have guns eveywhere. That has to be a thing soon right? Also does this count as another thing they predicted like flip phones and tablets?

Seriously guys I need answers, so enjoy this for a bit and may the gaming gods bring you glory.