LOL gaming in 2016

So I've been neglecting this site for a while. Not sure why, I'm always full of opinions... and pie. Probably just being lazy... Oh well. :D

So...  what's happened in the last 12 months?

Gamergate seems to be dying out... it has become a weird group of infighting factions. Most of which I can't see doing anything positive anymore... A shame. And yet, the effects of it shall not be lost any time soon I imagine.

Lots of asset flipping games and other shenanigans on steam.

Some great games such as the witcher 3, and many others. Some shitty ones too... I've found some amusing games that are remakes of older RPGs from consoles; Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth series I've found quite pleasant. It's a little ecchi, but mostly amusing and rather cute. It's good that the ecchi is rare, as most of the characters either appear or actually are underage (lol loli lol).

Lots of bullshit on YouTube... we really could do with a reasonable alternative.

Oooh, there's a great looking game called Yandere Simulator (though the dev wants to change the name)! It's like a mix of a Yandere Anime and a good hitman game... It has a long way to go but it's already showing immense promise!

Tons and tons of SJW bullshit with games being censored... I won't blame SJWs for all of the censorship, but their influence seems to be expanding what the often cowardly western games industry did naturally. Seriously, cut that shit out! I won't buy a censored game EVER AGAIN.

Sooo what's coming up for gaming this year?

Who the fuck knows, let's just play and see what happens...

Gamergate

Subtitle: Oh wow...

Ok, so I'm not going to put myself down either way, as being involved in this thing is just asking for trouble. But I will list below a few things I've learnt 'cause of Gamergate.

1. First and foremost; trolling on the internet, like most things on the internet, over time has been distilled by a select few special people into the purest possible form of trolling possible... pure bile. I wish we could ban them from technology. And no, I'm talking about one side or another, as far as I can tell the worst of it is from 3rd parties assholes.

2. Kotaku is useless. I've hated Kotaku for a long damn time... what's came out from Gamergate has justified this hatred far beyond what I could have ever been able to do on my own. Thanks Gamergate.

3. Attacking gamers as a whole is a baaaad idea.

4. Attacking feminists as a whole is a baaaad idea.

5. Watching feminists and gamers fight is a really dirty war to observe (ignoring the 3rd parties).

6. Last, but certainly not least... it looks like the gamers are winning despite the feminists/"Anti-GGers" getting support from the main stream press and from all sorts of media outlets.

7. Seriously... Kotaku sucks balls... sweaty old man balls.

Most of the above is either obvious, or boring... So I'm going to tell you a story; a story of a young gamer and a shitty news site. Every once in a while the young gamer would come across a story on that interested the gamer, and it would be on the shitty news site...

The story would be genuinely interesting, and would cause the gamer to browse to the main page and just go... "WTF is this shit?" and leave, until the next somewhat interesting story popped up again on the shitty news site.

Time after the time this little story would play out, at least 5 times over a decade... until the gamer, older, wiser and grumpier finally decided to never visit the site again...

It's unlikely this gamer is alone... Kotaku, Gawker, etc... all these sites are similar. Get you in with the odd interesting article, then scare you off with BS. It's an unsustainable business model and I suspect (and hope) to see the end of these sites within a year.

Keeper3; Fuck you Kotaku... nobody likes you. :3

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.

Anita Sarkeesian

Alternate title: how I learned to love YouTube comments... lololololololol

I'm going to keep this short; I've already commented on gender issues previously, but I feel I must make a specific comments on Anita...

1. Most important point: Anita has the right to her opinion... stop attacking her for simply speaking up and happening to possess lady parts. Seriously, stop it.
2. When I first heard of Anita, I found the idea of her videos to be interesting; strangely enough, I have noticed one or two gender issues in games as I've matured (...well I've gotten older at least) and even though I had a feeling I wouldn't agree with her it's a discussion we need to have.
3. I am disappointed in her video series thus far (I've only watched two of 'em)... Like I said I didn't expect to agree but after watching the first one it just seemed to me she entered into this with a preconceived notion that all games and male gamers are sexist and this was just her justifying her position.
4. The initial and continuing backlash against Anita is incredibly counter-productive. Also; see point one.
5. I was disappointed that comments and ratings have been disabled on her videos; she has strong arguments to do so but I feel if she wants a dialogue... then she should go the whole hog. If she just wants her soapbox and to treat the offending opposition like children who don't deserve to speak then they're just going to have a bigger tantrum somewhere else.

To be blunt, my advice to you lads out there that hate Anita? Ignore her. It doesn't even matter if she is, in fact, doing this to get media attention and it's just trolling... grow up. For those, like me, who don't hate her but think her videos have flaws you should make posts or videos arguing against her points.

For me, this post is enough.

Unless Sarkessian makes some sort of earth shattering revelation, I really don't want to read or hear about her again.

...for those curious, here's a few examples of gender issues I think we could attack;

1. Stupid armour designs for women that over sexualise (chainmail bikini anyone?)
2. Female characters put into a game as essentially a coat-hanger for stupid armour that over sexualises 
3. Using violence (including rape) exclusively against women merely to move the story forward without showing any consequences (in other words, it can be used but can not be trivialised)
4. Advertising for games that include the above regardless if these are actually present in the game or not (skin tight leather clad murder nuns anyone?)
5. Not enough stories with significant female characters; and no, I do not agree with the argument that Samus Aran or other similar characters are "Ms Men" (what bullshit) but there are simply not enough females represented in games

There's more, but that's enough for now; well at least lately there have been some games that at least avoid all of the above (e.g. The Last of Us), shame some of these are not on the PC.

Now, sexism will always be present in games as it is in all media, if you don't believe me just look at the extreme end of the scale; porn and porn games... holy shit you haven't seen sexism until you look at the sorts of games available from the Japanese hentai developers! The following is a real genre for these games: "Run or Rape". If demand exists for this kind of media it will always exist... But; we should be asking more from the mainstream and indie developers; we should reject pandering like dead or alive beach volleyball and we should not treat people who speak up like witches that must be burnt at the stake!

...if nothing else, when these people are not ready for a real discussion and want to engage in soap-boxing, they won't have a ready made excuse to get away with it.

Keeper3 - We need some grown ups here...

Diablo 3 expansion

Alternate title: Expansion for game no one wants likely attempting to package features promised in original release.

Or... Alternate title: *yawn*

So, Diablo 3 is getting an expansion... why? Does Blizzard think anyone wants to play this piece of shit? Perhaps I underestimate the... patience? Of the fanbase. A famous man once said "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

For me, all I know is that Fail-ablo still doesn't have the promised PvP content, I haven't been motivated to play it in months and none of my friends play it either... My hope is no one will buy this crap, my expectation is it will sell well enough... but far less than Diablo 3 sold.

Not much more to say at this point... but I felt the need to type out my frustration at even knowing this game still exists.

Oh well... Maybe they will make it NOT SUCK!

Keeper3, no they won't...

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.