Warhammer Total Bullshit

Or...
Napoleon Total war 2: Electric boogaloo

I own Warhammer Total War; it's a good game... now there's Warhammer Total War 2... around a year after the first. As a long term fan of the Total War series since Rome Total War, with hundreds of hours invested...

Way too much time wasted...

...I remember when Empire: Total war was followed in short order by Napoleon Total war... Both were inferior entries in the series and there was very little time between them. It's clear looking at these games the same engine, similar rules, nations, etc, these are practically the same game. I attempted to play Napoleon, probably some time in 2015; and it was a buggy mess. Particularly when fighting the AI in sieges especially when they were defending... This was after they had essentially "fixed" the game and weren't offering any more major updates.

The defenders, such as they were, would form up in a line.... this line did not conform to their fortifications and would often cut across them in amusing ways; also they wouldn't advance... or retreat. All they would do is wheel around to face your army and SOMETIMES their soldiers would auto-fire when you marched in range.

Total Incompetence.

...get it?

Anyway, Total war empire wasn't any better, ultimately Napoleon was the better game... but the release of what was essentially a clone that barely did any better was just shocking to me. Of course, SEGA and Creative Assembly have shown themselves to be just as good at scamming their audience as any other AAA publisher or dev so in retrospect it isn't really all that surprising.

All I can be certain of, is that I put off getting either of the above until both were heavily discounted and I still felt ripped off.

With the above in mind... here comes Warhammer Total War 2... And I'm supposed to pony up brand new $60 video game money for what looks like an admittedly large DLC pack?!? Nah mate, pull the other one... it's got bells on!

That's all really, not particularly surprising behaviour from SEGA and Creative Assembly; proving once again that the customer is always wrong, and should always be prepared to throw more money to get something approaching the full experience.

I've had enough of SEGA and CA, I won't pay full price for their games ever again.

Keeper3 - Publishers gonna publish (i.e. be complete arseholes).

Blizzard Censors Stuff Again!

or

How Blizzard decides to be everyone's overprotective adoptive mum!

What's this? A post?!?

Well, when a big company with a long history of quality games does such a massive own goal; censoring a game based on a single post from a "father" about protecting his daughter and not sexualising a spunky character.... I have to chime in. :3

Yes, I couldn't help myself... a bit late to the party but it still happened quite recently... sooo on with the show!

ASS-GATE

So... apparently an ass on a 'non-sexualised' character is now an issue... great. And what's worse? The post that led to all of this? Some asshole "parent" claiming that his/her 4 year old should be able to look up to tracer or some similar bullshit.

Wait, what?

I wonder what else this parent needs help with...

A four year girl might look up to tracer? A video game character? A PLAYABLE character? And the only way to protect your daughter is to remove a fairly tame pose?

Are you retarded? I think this guy is retarded...

Ok, the following applies:

1. Blizzard should not be responsible for what your 4 year old gets to experience, that's your job. If mildly sexual female character pose is an issue, she doesn't get to see it. (should be) End of story!
2. Seeing a character do a slightly sexualised pose is going to damage your daughter? Really? Is the retardation you have genetic?
3. Sex is not bad... you should know this, it likely generated this daughter (assuming this isn't all just a fucking troll or scam); even if you can argue that Tracer is generally a non-sexualised character... that doesn't mean she's fucking gender neutral!
4. Perhaps most importantly, there has been no link made between the behavior of a character in a video game and the behavior of someone in real life. The best I've read suggests that playing a video game may make you more aggressive and hyped up, but actually less likely to commit a violent act. That's it. So your suggestion that a video game character could do some harm to your daughter has nothing to back it up.
5. Finally... In this game you can play as Tracer... against Tracer. Think about that for a second... your impressionable daughter, could watch you playing as Tracer, murdering Tracer... if your daughter's head is as soft as your own, that would fuck her up for YEARS!

word

I did a tiny amount of interwebs sleuthing, and had a look at this morons post history; 66 posts (of which, for some reason I could only sample 15), only 1 was not about female characters in the game.

That's right, being fair that's 14/15 posts on SJW bullshit; 93%. What's even more interesting? The oldest post in his history is in fact.... the post that started all of this off. Also, no posts since the announcement of the censorship (29/04/2016); almost a week of possible great Beta feedback this concerned poster claiming to have the future of the game in mind simply missing! Suspicious but not clear evidence of anything... Below is the last post shown in "Fipps" post history as of 05/04/2016. And yes, it is "the post".

ZOMG ORIGINAL CONTENT

Yes, I went to the 'trouble' of screen shotting. Thank me later. :D

Anyway, ParentDouchbag is really a side issue, the primary issue is how quickly Blizzard caved to the SJW, and then suddenly grew a backbone when the now easily predictable backlash hit them. It's almost as if the SJW infestation has hit some critical mass where the big game companies themselves have so many, that they themselves are practically chomping at the bit to change this or remove that... very sad.

Well, this little black duck isn't going to buy this game. I mean, up to now I was only peripherally interested anyway... Another 3rd person MOBA? Doesn't blizzard already have a MOBA? And a card game? And WoW-crack? and Diablo 3? Yeah no.

How many games can they make? And do they have enough censors for them all?!?

Only time will tell...

...it's interesting you know? Recently I came across a post on the toilet of the internet... 4chan. It suggested that some software companies that have drunk the cool aid have, over time, hired so many via quotas and such that these relatively unskilled and often politically motivated SJW types chase out the established and experienced white males that once dominated... then these companies die from simply no longer being able to perform at the same level...

Abandon all hope ye that enter /b/

Now, this is only a conspiracy theory from 4chan.... but people from 4chan once took a huge crap on the bloody stupid religion of Scientology, people from 4chan have done amazing interweb detective work... and rule 34. Sometimes 4chan is right on the money... (and the toilet thing was a joke... honest... DON'T HURT ME 4CHAN!)

Once I would have dismissed such a theory, but look at some of the companies that have embraced SJW philosophy? In particular the developers of Mass Effect and Dragon Age; Bioware. They've gone down hill in a big way in just the time it took to make those game series... and rumors abound following recent departures that the company may be gone before the end of the year, even Mass Effect Andromeda may not come out!

This might be Blizzard's future, petering out and disappearing as the company collapses in on itself under the weight of talentless quota hires, ridiculous shoe-horning of SJW ideas, censorship, etc.

Worst of all? Part of me wants it to happen... I want to watch them burn their own house to the ground and wonder why it's suddenly very drafty and cold.

...satisfying.

We will have to wait and see.

Keeper3 - Censorship is Bul----(Censored for rudeness)

Dungeon Keeper... mobile?

Alternate title: FU$@#%G EA CUN$#%G MYTHIC I HATES THEM

I really don't have much to say, I've been waiting for so long for a new dungeon keeper game... when I heard about a mobile dungeon keeper game I thought "Ok, it's not what I want but it might be amusing... I have a solid smart phone..."

But NO; it had to be a 'free' complete piece of pay to win; or pay to wait as people are starting to call 'em, shit that's not even a game.

That's it, technically it's free but I can't be bothered even to download it to my phone. I hate this thing!

ARRRRGH!!!

Keeper3; I called myself keeper3 in part because I wanted a Dungeon Keeper 3... I no longer believe this will ever happen.

Mass Effect 3 DLC

Subtitle: How I learned to ignore a shitty ending.

Sooo... it's been a while since the debacle of the Mass Effect 3 Sadly Shitty Ending (MESSE, pronounced 'messy'). I've gotten over it at some point, and decided to have a look at the DLC... including the extended ending.

Yes, that's right. I was so pissed at the ending that I didn't even bother to check out the extended ending until now.

So below, I shall give a paragraph on each DLC and then a conclusion, is ME3 better with or without DLC? Does the extended ending make the pain lesser? Is the DLC just an extra turd on the shit sandwich of the MESSE?

Very, very MESSE.

Let's see.

First off, let us speak of "From Ashes", day one DLC. It's not good enough for what they charge, simple as that. It should have been part of the main game... but this article is more about the later true DLC packages.

Omega; this one is ok, but overpriced. Aria wants to take back Omega, you help her and meet an old friend of hers... who then dies. You kill Cerberus for two, maybe three hours... kill a few odd reaper themed enemies in a rather alienesqe scene... that's it. Skip it.

Leviathan; I won't spoil this one at all, it's a must see for those looking for more story and background... It also has an amusing change up in that you need to do a bit of sluething to work out what to do. Skip it if you aren't looking for story. Note: one negative that has annoyed me since finishing this DLC is that other than some unique war assets the DLC does not seem to affect the main story. Some dialogue simply doesn't fit with what you learn from the DLC.

Citadel; this is an odd one, I loved this DLC. It's easily the best one for me, but it is also completely skippable. It's so much fun to have all these characters coming back, my favorite is a brief encounter with Wrex post-genophage cure... having a drink at the bar with Wrex, all the while he's requesting bags of ice for some... relief. Very amusing, but totally fan service.

See, there's a problem with the above that's becoming more and more evident... the DLC, good or bad... is skippable. If I never played them would I miss them at all? Then again, the argument could be issued against the game itself... But ME3, wether the MESSE is considered or not, is a great game. The DLC on the other hand feels, at best, average.

Is that EA's fault? The Devs? The market? I dunno.

Word.

Still, watching Wrex whine about having to make babies so much made me laugh out loud. If you enjoy the character interactions of Mass Effect in general, then the Citadel DLC is the only one you need. Otherwise, skip all of 'em.

Oh, and the extended ending... hoo boy. It's improved the ending a lot... but it's just not a good ending. It's still kind of insulting that despite all your choices you get it all boiled down to red, green, blue.At least it's free I suppose.

Colours are pretty...

Despite the ending and weakness of the DLC; ME3 is still one of the best games of 2012... but it's a low note compared to ME2... and a poor ending to the trilogy.

Keeper3, Who really wanted multiplayer shooter action in an RPG anyway?!? Fuckers!

P.S. I really REALLY hate all the 'checking' that the damned game does every time it started, like it needed to check my DNA and do a rectal temperature measurement to make sure I'm the PAYING CUSTOMER on their records or some shit. Oh, and I hate Origin too.

Simcity 2013

Subtitle: Online only? WHY?!?

This isn't a review; just a quick discussion. I heard a few months back about a new simcity game coming out. I was interested, I liked simcity back in the day. I have fond memories of several games from the sim series.

Simearth.
Simant.
Simcity; on the commodore 64 and PC
Simcity 2000

Great games. I wasn't terribly excited about the new simcity, I've simply played too many of 'em to expect something amazing or revolutionary... but I was interested.

Then... I heard it was online only.

Yeah, no.

I mean, come on! Simcity is a big sandbox game, literally! What's the point of being online while you build a city? Where's the need for the multiplayer aspect? The only reason I can see it happening is the stupid move to more 'social' systems in games. There's already a simcity style game on facebook, and it's free! NOT EVERY GAME NEEDS SOCIAL INTERACTION!!! More than likely it's just a façade, a lie to cover up the main goal of DRMing the game via a login screen.

THEN! Oh boy, then... the release was utterly bungled to the point where they've started to rip out features in an attempt to  keep the servers online.

I wish I could say I wasn't expecting it, but let's face it... when was the last time one of these online only games that are really single player experiences actually came out without having an awful release?

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. No fucking way I was going to buy another game with a completely unnecessary online component. And everyone that did needs to wake up and realise their mistake.

It's time to demand our money back, fuck EA and fuck this trend of forcing us online to play single player games.

Keeper3, Fuck EA; it's just that simple.

Diablo 3

I've been lacking the energy to do this right, but it must be done... and you knew this was coming.

So despite my lack of interest in Diablo 3, a combination of peer pressure and a good price from a local retailer ($60 AUD for a box and DVD instead of $80 for digital distribution from blizz, EAT THAT ACTIVISION AND BLIZZARD!!!) convinced me to buy it.

And after I installed it I couldn't log in due to error 37... my joy couldn't be contained.

Diablo 3: The return of Diab- ERROR 37 FUCK OFF THE SERVERS ARE DOWN

Now I thought about this for a minute: "Why? Why am I so pleased?" I mean, I'm being inconvenienced by this just as much as anyone else and, as much as I hate to admit it, the basic game is actually pretty fun if uber grindy, poorly paced and criminally short.

My face when you madpost about Diablo

Well, it all boils down to one thing...

Arrogance

Arrogance on the part of Blizzard, feeding us a slightly updated Diablo 2 and expecting use to lap it up and call it gold.
Arrogance on the part of Activision for the constant online DRM and flawed real money auction house, and I definitely blame Activision for the lack of offline play.

Blizzard and Activision's board of directors amusing themselves at your expense

What amuses me most is the fanbois, lovingly caressing Blizzard's and/or Activision's collective cocks and defending the horrible release, knee jerk class balancing and constant server issues.

The fact that Blizzard managed to turn a free kick into an own goal just fills me with the warm glow of pessimism and loathing proven right.

Diablo 3: then and now!

Diablo 3 has been out for a few months now... and I've stopped playing, my friends that were OH SO CERTAIN that diablo 3 would be amazing have stopped playing it, the real money auction house appears to be failing, PVP is still not implemented... The only way this could be worse is if the servers had never been up at all, and that would at least give the people a chance to get their money back for Blizzard failing to provide the service payed for.

If a bank or public service website were to provide such a shocking level of service, you'd be getting your torches and pitchforks, here instead we're supposed to just suck it up because "it's a game"... well you know what? For better or worse I take my games fairly seriously and I'm just infuriated that a company can make all their promises, fail to deliver and just barge on through and act like nothing is actually wrong.

"we apologise for any inconvenience"

When I want to play a game, inconvenience should be the furthest thing from my mind.

In closing

It's sad you know... My favorite gaming companies and game series are dying, companies like Bullfrog and Westwood, series like Quake. What do we get now? Games that are filled with harmful and restricting DRM, diluted stories, shallow game elements and poor customer service. Diablo is just the latest and greatest bomb, and the worst part? It will STILL get a good metascore (88% as of writing) and enough fanbois to keep it afloat.

Too big to fail perhaps? Hmph.

Keeper3, there's one positive to Diablo 3 compared to previous games... Diablo has BEWBS!!!*

*No, really... Diablo appears to have breasts when you finally fight 'him'.

Sword of the stars 2

Also known as "Patch of the updates 2: Fix day"

I bought Sots2 on release day... they still haven't delivered the finished game... the news page on steam is a list of patches longer than a bad day on WoW after a major fix and it's just ridiculous. The game was UNPLAYABLE and I contend that Steam and the developers have essentially committed fraud and cost many people time and bandwidth for little gain.

I wanted to do a review of a game, not a failed attempt at delivering one.

Keeper3, just because there isn't a game yet, doesn't mean I can't hate it.

Rage; also, RAAAAAAAAAAAGE!

So, ID software recently release a game called "Rage", and ironically there's plenty of rage surrounding it. I'm mostly indifferent, although somewhat amused at Rage. I just don't care about it... to me it looks like a rehash of the Fallout setting and, worst of all, the PC version is essentially a port.

I was all set to ignore Rage and allow it's existence to fade away from my memory and slip into my subconscious... until I saw this.

John Carmack "We do not see the PC as the leading platform for games."

...

"That statement will enrage some people,"

No, really?

"but it is hard to characterize it otherwise; both console versions will have larger audiences than the PC version."

He goes on about focusing on consoles for the development of rage, and that while PCs are 10 times more powerful, it means that 10 times the effort is required to make use of that power and other complete bullshit.

PCs may not be the leading platform for games, but they should be. Why? Because everyone has a PC. EVERYONE! So when you make a good PC game, your audience is EVERYONE, not the fraction of people that own a certain console, every household in the western world... If developers could actually sit down and make games that would bring the punters in and use what the PC has they would know this.

But no, it's easier to develop for consoles, so let's just ignore the PC.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy, if they make SHIT for PC, no one will play games on the PC... and if you can get exactly the same damned game on console or PC, why would you deal with the technically more difficult PC unless you're good with technology? On top of that, the PC has the worst restrictions when it come to copy protection, is it any wonder there are those that want to avoid it?!?

Carmack, you are a disgrace, once you were a pioneer in gaming development, your company essentially created the online FPS genre, now you're just another hack using his past efforts and his companies brand to sell mediocre rubbish. Like Lucas, Spielberg and any number of greats that have been laid low by their own fame, confident that only they can be right about their field and ignorant of the epic failures of their most recent projects.

I'm going to go play a better game than rage... Like Quake.

Keeper3, Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage!

PS Oh, and the release of the bloody game on PC was atrocious, mister "multi-platform" developer.