Confessions of a gamer

All Fable lovers have probably heard about the remake of the first Fable game, it´s not a new game but an HD remake of the original game. Which really makes me wonder, if it adds nothing new why would you pay for a game you probably already have? Because Microsoft is clever, every new console can´t play the old games and so they can give them a graphics update and release them again on the new consoles. Is that from the good of their heart or just a clever way of earning some extra money? I don´t want to complain though, I really enjoyed playing Fable and I miss playing that game. The last time I played that game I still had the original Xbox, which is quite some years ago. There was also an option to download Fable on your Xbox 360 but that was so fucked up, after playing for about 30 minutes the screen went black and after that I couldn´t play the game anymore. So this new HD version could be just what I wanted, but I do feel like I´m paying for a game I already have. Because there...

Some people don´t really care about their gamertag, which often reflects in some of the silly and just stupid gamertags out there. Then there are also people who just add a popular name followed by a number, it doesn´t really matter to them or they really want that specific gamertag even if that means having a number in their gamertag. But what if you´re picky and you want a specific gamertag without any other letters or symbols in your gamertag? When you´re first you get to chose first? With a lot of internet related things, usually the first one gets to pick the best names or gamertags. Which usually means that the good ones are often gone within days, so it does pay off to be quick with something good. Still with some imagination and creativity you can come up with an interesting gamertag or at least something else than Jack117MC or Hitsyourtits. But it´s frustrating when there is already someone that got the gamertag that you wanted but that person seems to be offline since 2009,...

In a lot of games these are probably the most hated type of gamers, I´m talking about that lovable lazy guy or girl that waits for you to come to him or her. Why are campers so hated? Because a lot of people don´t respect them, they consider their tactics as a cheap trick and find it annoying when they constantly get killed by this person. Often a camper will count on a vengeful player that will keep attacking him or her so a camper can get multiple kills on the same person. But not every camper is skilled, sometimes it´s easy to defeat them and it´s not suprising to see them rage quit when their tactic fails in a match. But is it all about winning? I don´t know, I can´t say I´m that familiar with campers and it´s a tactic I don´t use. I wouldn´t call campers the scum of the Earth but really it´s not a lot of fun to play against people who only do that, because they just suck the fun out of every match. Still that doesn´t keep people from doing it, some die hard campers move from the f...

Do you remember when they first started with this? I must admit that I can´t remember the first game that started with it but I do remember which game made it popular, the game God of War. Unlike some games God of War actually made it fun to use quick time events, because you used them to finish off bosses or stronger enemies. There wasn´t a real punishment if you failed and it didn´t feel that repetitive most of the time. So what happened over the years? How did we get into quick time event hell? After the game God of War I saw several other games pick up the same trick, Resident Evil 4 has such moments and eventhough some are ok I can´t say that the game really needs that. I´d rather watch a cutscene and just enjoy it instead of having to press the exact right button in the middle of such a cutscene. Failure would usually mean death and I really mean just making one little mistake. Another game that uses quick time events is Jericho, a fun game but really those quick time events di...

Resident Evil is one of those games I would´ve never played if I didn´t have a friend who was a fan of survival horror games. I had never heard of Resident Evil and I probably wouldn´t have played it if that friend of mine didn´t shoved that game in my hands and convinced me to play it. I was never much of a zombie person and I can´t say I´m a zombie person now, I like the Walking Dead and I´ve played several zombie games but I wouldn´t call myself a fan of that. So what makes Resident Evil so special? I think the story in the first game is just a creepy and interesting way to introduce new players to an awesome game, because you slowly discover what went wrong in the mansion and by solving the puzzles you make your way deeper and deeper into that creepy mansion. It´s the way the Resident Evil movie should´ve been, in that mansion or at least something similar. Resident Evil is a mixture of action and scare tactics, making you feel uncomfortable and yet pushing you to go further into t...

In this new topic I´ll handle every Sunday one of my sins or sins that I´ve seen in games, things that aren´t really horrible but still might not be the nicest thing to do. There isn´t really a religious input here, just a play with words and in a way trying to make the gaming world a little bit better. Nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes and we all do things that aren´t really acceptable. Let´s dive deeper in some of these situations or actions that are connected to gaming. Lying isn´t a big deal, right? It´s true, it´s not a big deal to lie to others but you might feel uncomfortable living with that lie. But it will really depend on the lie itself, I mean did you just say that you have blue eyes instead of brown eyes or did you actually lie about your age? Also why did you lie? I know that some people lie online to achieve certain goals, some of these goals are quite disturbing and quite unpleasant. But I don´t think everyone that lies online is a monster, we all have moments i...

I think that dlc is a good way to keep games interesting, because no matter how much you enjoy a game there will come a time and a place that you´re done with a game. So what better way to keep a game fun to play by creating new content for it. But this new content isn´t always appreciated, often developers are accused for filling their pockets with some cheap tactics. Which makes you wonder, what do you want to see in dlc? It´s all about money? I guess you can´t get around it, yes money is important but I don´t think every developer is just going for money. Still offering dlc for a price is a good way to make some extra money. In games like CoD it´s easy to earn extra money with a new weapon camo or some avatar items. This is next to the planned dlc that gives you new maps and weapons, so do you really need those extra dlc packs or is it just something for the die hard fan? I think it doesn´t really matter, if the price is right then you´ll often find yourself buying something. I´d ...

In a lot of games people will remember the main character, his/her companions or the main boss. This actually makes good sense, because usually that´s what the game is all about, you focus on your character and often his/her most dangerous opponent. But is that always the final boss in a game? What if there is someone else in a game that´s actually a bigger threat? Or at least that scared the crap out of you, have you ever faced such an opponent? Usually the weaker you are in games the more enemies you´ll remember when they constantly kill you, it´s a learning process that will often help you get past an annoying enemy in the game. But it doesn´t even have to be an enemy, sometimes it´s a certain jump or trick you have to do in order to get past the obstacle and make progress in the game. Maybe that´s even the worst, that you have to do something you keep failing to do. If there is an enemy you have to beat then it´s usually a matter of time, but with a certain jump or other ways...

How many times does it happen to you that when you play a multiplayer game that suddenly out of nowhere you get a friend invite? I´ve noticed that this happens a lot when I´m succesful in a multiplayer match, apparently some people want to be friends with people that have skill. But does the succes in one match really make you a gamer with skill? Well I can tell you that I´m not that good, I might have a lucky match every now and then but that hardly makes me an expert in that game. But it doesn´t bother me that people want to be friends with me after playing a game with me just once, it bothers me the most that people invite you to be friends with them without sending a message first or any other form of communication. Why bother sending a message? You might wonder that yourself, isn´t it easier to just invite people to be friends with you instead of first communicating? Oh yes it´s easier, but wouldn´t you prefer to first know with whom you´re dealing before you accept someone ...

What is a lone wolf? Well when it comes to playing games it often means that you prefer to play single player games, you hardly ever play multiplayer games and when you do then you´re not really a team player. In multiplayer matches lone wolves aren´t that populair, because they often don´t want to play as a team and just want to do their own thing. Sometimes this is mistaken for arrogance but in truth they just enjoy playing games on their own. Because they play a lot of games solo they´re not always that social, so don´t expect a lone wolf to be talkative in a multiplayer match. Of course that doesn´t mean that they don´t say anything, I guess a lot of lone wolves just prefer to play games and leave the chatter to other people. How do you recognize a lone wolf? * They have a lot of single player games in their game list. * Most of those games they´ve completed or they´ve got a lot of achievements or trophies in them. * Lone wolves sometimes mute other players becaus...

A lot of times I hear gamers talk about the new generation of consoles introduces themselves with better graphics in games, but so far I´ve heard several people complain that the graphics aren´t that much better. But is this really so imporant? How about gameplay? Do you consider gameplay to be a deciding factor in buying a game or passing it? But no matter how nice the controls are in a game if it looks like shit then you´ll probably want to ignore it anyway. Or are there other things that decide what makes you want to buy a game or not? In my NES and SNES days I couldn´t care less about graphics, I mean in the 8 bit and 16 bit days everything looked kind of the same so nobody really cared about that. The gameplay did matter, did you have good control over your character or some retarded bullshit that made you want to jump in the hole. But the better the games started to look on future consoles the more important that became, suddenly it wasn´t about the gameplay but it was...

Who could´ve thought that a Star Wars game is that good? Oh sure you have your Rogue Squadron fans and then you have maybe some Shadows of the Empire fans, but really was there ever such a great adventure as in Knights of the Old Republic (Kotor)? I don´t think so! Instead of messing with the whole Skywalker saga you play in a time way before all that happened, about 3000 years before. Strangely enough technology didn´t really make that much advancements because a lot of things I saw there were also there in the movies, I think certain things in the game even looked more modern than in the original trilogy. But who really cares about that? The game is fantastic! What makes this game so good? In one simple word I´d say the story, because that was a lot of fun to play and then play again. But also the characters are quite memorable, my favourite HK-47 is by far one of the funniest characters I´ve seen in all the games I´ve played. This is coming from a guy that isn´t really into robots...

After the holidays it´s almost as if things are back to normal, there aren´t any big releases at the moment and we all seem to dive into games we bought earlier. Some of us play multiplayer games and spend time in that sometimes harsh environment, but others play single player games and try to complete what they can before the next big release. It´s nice to have moments like these, where you can relax and enjoy the games you bought or got from someone else. What I like about this time is that it gives you time to finish whatever game you haven´t finished and yet the time of no big releases isn´t as big as it is in Summer. Sometimes there are exceptions, big titles that launch in January or February, but often you get till March until something interesting launches. So what games are launching and are worth noticing? I think the one game so many people are looking forward to is Titanfall, I think that this game has some high expectations and that isn´t always a good thing. Sure it´s n...

I´d say the average person doens´t like to be humiliated, well there are some that get turned on by such things but I´ll spare you the details of such strange things. When you play a game then you don´t want to be humiliated, sure among friends it can be funny but with strangers it´s often annoying when you´re the victim of being humiliated. Humiliation is usually one of the main reasons why people rage quit or get mad in a game, but what would you consider to be humiliating? When I play a game of CoD then there is always a good chance to meet kids, you know the squeaky voice type that can barely look what´s on the table. When these kids constantly camp and slaughter you then that´s frustrating, but I can definately see how people feel humiliated in such a situation because most adults don´t want to be beaten by a kid. There are also guys that feel humiliated when a girl beats them, still that´s not something you always know at the time so I doubt that even people who consider that t...

Some of us love them but others really hate them, cutscenes are in a lot of games and they can be a lot of fun to watch or extremely boring and annoying. Some games go without cutscenes while others have a lot and some of them are also pretty long. Cutscenes are sometimes unwanted and other times needed, I guess it really depends on the person playing the game. But why are there cutscenes in games? A lot of cutscenes are in a game to help tell the story, but other times it´s just showing off how beautiful the game is. I remember that the opening cinematic in Final Fantasy VIII made me want to finish that game, it´s just so good! The cutscenes in that game often introduced characters or showed something that looked so much better in a cutscene. But in games like Max Payne 3 a cutscene was also used as you having something to look at while the next chapter is being loaded. Which is actually pretty smart, unless you´ve finished the game for several times and you just want to skip that. ...

Sometimes I notice a clash between realistic fps gamers and fantasy fps gamers, claiming that one is better than the other. It´s usually a short moment when the realistic fps gamers agree among eachother that they focus their negativity on the fantasy fps gamers instead of on eachother. I know that a lot of people don´t consider Call of Duty as a realistic fps but if you compare it to Halo then it definately fits in the realistic part of first person shooters. People prefer reality over fantasy? When you look at certain games then you would think so, the amount of copies that the CoD and Battlefield games sell don´t lie. They show that a huge group of gamers buy these games and you often see thousands and thousands of people online playing those games. For a fan of weapons it´s probably more fun to have a realistic fps than a fantasy fps, because the recognition of weapons in the game is probably fun for the weapon fan and using them even more. But also the fast game play, becaus...

So today I´m starting with something new, the you know you´re a ..... series. It´s nothing serious and purely for amusement, but it could be a way to recognize certain behaviour online and maybe even offline. Harsh words may be used but it´s not an attack on anyone, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I hopefully will enjoy typing it. The rager, this is someone you can easily recognize in an online match with other players. Because most of them are loud and easily annoyed, so they´re not always the most popular type of gamers to play with and yet you can find a lot of them in certain competitive multiplayer games. A rager doesn´t play games to get mad, I think deep down a rager just wants to have fun but fails to do so because of a bad performance and he or she just can´t handle that which often means blowing off some steam in the form of verbal abuse. But there are also ragers that use physical violence on their environment, which is something they often regret afterwards. A rager i...

Sooner or later you´re confronted by it, religion. With the church starting to lose more and more followers it´s actually suprising to see still a lot of mentions of it in games. But then again religion mentioned in games isn´t usually a good thing for the church. Other times religion is just borrowed to explain something or to give someone a background with something. Of course religion is so much more than just the church, there are so many types of religions that I doubt I could type it all down in an afternoon. I think religion can make a creepy game even creepier, just look at the first Silent Hill, and can give you a false sense of security, the temple of time in the ocarina of time, which means that a place that is considered holy isn´t always safe. Religion means whiny people complaining? If that would be true then there would be a lot of religious people and I think I mentioned at the start that there is a decrease of the number of religious people. But there is truth in rel...

I think there are still a lot of people that see this game as one of their favourite games, I´m proud to say that I´m one of those people. This game was my first experience with first person shooters, which meant I went into a whole new genre and loved it from the start. But I remember the side effect I had from playing that game, every time I closed my eyes I would see myself running through hall ways and things flashing in front of my eyes. I guess I wasn´t used to this type of game, everything went so fast and from that first person perspective everything looked like it was coming straight at you. But this didn´t last for a long time, within a week I got used to it and then I tried to master the game. For anyone that doesn´t know, I can´t believe they exist but it´s possible, Goldeneye is a game for the N64 that´s based on the James Bond movie also called Goldeneye. I think it was my first positive experience with a game that was based on a movie, so many times I had played movie ...

Is that a little bit too dramatic? I know that it sounds ridiculous but seriously gaming can be bad for your health! Of course there are several other things that are also bad for your health and nobody seems to whine about that, well actually people whine about that but nobody seems to care about that. So why is this gaming can be dangerous thing so important? Because as much as I love gaming, I don´t want people to suffer because of their hobby. Hm once again a bit dramatic, I must have missed an opportunity in the theater... What´s so dangerous about gaming? No it´s not the amount of violence in games, I´ve talked about that multiple times and a violent game doesn´t make a person violent. Of course it´s never a good idea to let a kid play an adult game, so that would be something you´d like to be careful with. The problem with a lot of gamer addicts is that they play games for a long period of time and not take a break, which means that they sit in the same position for several ho...

I think you´d have to be living under a rock if you didn´t notice the super hero popularity in the last decade. A lot of movies, comics, cartoons and also games have made it very popular for a lot of people. But what´s so interesting about super heroes? We all want to be a hero? I wouldn´t say that everyone wants that, but I think there is a part of us that likes to be the hero. Save the girl, do something amazing and be adored by others. It seems cool when you think of it, but then there is that part where great powers come with great responsibility. Of course let´s not forget the part where that´s fantasy and this is reality, for as far as I know. It would be awesome if you could fly, have super strength or have elemental powers. But so far that´s just fantasy, maybe some day in the future that can be reality but I doubt any of us will be around then. So all we have are the movies, comics, cartoons and games. Which is of course cool as well, because a lot of people can have a l...

I think that a lot of people that play games on a pc don´t use a controller, usually because they´re used to their keyboard and mouse or perhaps they just don´t like to use a controller that much. It´s something a console gamer like myself finds difficult to believe, I grew up with consoles and started playing games on my pc much later. So it difficult to imagine that someone might actually prefer something else above a controller, you know that things that breaks so easily when you hit it too hard or breaks the moment it hits the ground to hard. Weird isn´t it? A controller isn´t meant for a rager? Or maybe it is, I mean people will sell a lot of controllers to people who have a bad temper. Because you break a controller so easily, trust me I have a lot of experience with this, you´ll have to buy a new one the moment your old one doesn´t work anymore. But in some cases it only has to happen to one button you need to use, for example with one of my controllers it was the right trigge...

I´ve heard this several times from guys who have a girlfriend that doesn´t like to play video games. Is it really so bad? Are women so evil that they don´t let guys play games? Often you only hear one side of the story, the guy can´t play video games because his girlfriend doesn´t like that. But what you often don´t hear is how the guy ignores everyone and everything when he plays games, which doesn´t make his girlfriend happy. Still sometimes people can be assholes, then they just want all attention for themselves, which means that someone else can´t have some time for himself (or herself) to play some games. Women, you can´t live with them and you can´t live without them right? I guess you could say that. The trick with women is to meet them halfway, sometimes you do something she likes and other times you do something you like. If you´re in a relationship where you constantly have to do what makes her happy and she never supports or allows you to do something you like then I think...

In most multiplayer games I see an increase in the level cap, which keeps players longer and longer in multiplayer. Of course that´s assuming that these players want to reach the level cap. Games that don´t want to increase the level cap usually rely on prestige where you go back to level one but with something extra or in some cases nothing new. I think that prestige, but also reaching the level cap, really shows the difference between fans of the game and just casual gamers. Because I don´t think everyone will reach the level cap or prestige when there is no reward for it, I guess an achievement or trophy might persuade some people to go for it but personally I´m not a big fan of it. It´s not really about being lazy, it´s more about not having the time to spend so much time in one game. Especially when a lot of nice games launch not far from eachother. That´s really one of the reasons why I hardly played Assassin´s Creed IV multiplayer, I really like that but because of the amount of...

Final Fantasy VIII, that was the start of role playing games for me. So it´s probably not a suprise that I see this Final Fantasy as my favourite, as many gamers that played Final Fantasy VII first will probably like that one more. This is a game I didn´t even buy at first, a friend gave it to me because it was such a good game. I don´t take someone elses word for these things, I´ll decide what I like and what I don´t like. I always hate it when people say that you need to see this or have to play that, guess what I don´t have to do anything! Anyway I ended up playing Final Fantasy VIII and it was probably the most fun I´ve had in a game for quite some time. You see I was still new to the Playstation and I´ve only played Nintendo games before that, so playing something completely different was a nice change. A good start is a good sign? I think a lot of people can agree that the start of the game is amazing, that opening cinematic is just beautiful and probably still one of ...

I´m almost always amazed by the skills of some gamers when it comes to map creation or even making an entire game within a game. In Halo Forge I´ve seen several maps and things you could do that seem almost impossible to an average gamer. Of course not every map is that complex but sometimes you can see a work of art that clearly took quite some time to make, eventhough some people might still call that not a big deal. When I look at Trials Evolution then I look at a simple idea that can be turned into something amazing. Just looking at some of the maps I can see that some people are quite talented when it comes to making maps. But then you see other people that just made another game within Trials, which is just insane but at the same time brilliant! No matter what game you would name as an example, I think that Minecraft is still one of the few games that lets people with a lot of creative skills make something amazing. It started with a nice building or maybe even a nice ...

I think everyone that has fun playing games don´t take games that seriously, because if you take games too seriously then what kind of fun are you having? I´ve always been a supporter of having fun in games, if a game isn´t fun then I don´t know why I should play it. You don´t read a book when it´s boring do you? Well maybe for school you might need to read some of those books, but with your free will you wouldn´t read that. So why do you play games if you´re not having fun playing them? What do you mean with taking games too seriously? I think sometimes there are moments in games that you have to concentrate, there is no time for giggles or fooling around. But that doesn´t mean that you´re not enjoying yourself, this isn´t what I mean with taking it too seriously. I´m talking about people who are so busy with their k/d ratio that they forget to have fun with it, these are often the same type of people that leave a match when they die once or twice in the first minute o...

Have you ever seen an episode of Supernatural? I like the episodes and it´s a funny way of introducing yourself to some interesting nonsense. It´s nothing you should take too seriously but it´s definately a lot of fun to watch, the dynamic between the two main actors is good and the sometimes hilarious characters they encounter make it quite entertaining. But after watching several episodes of the latest season I couldn´t help but wonder, why aren´t there any good supernatural games? I´m not even talking about a game based on the Supernatural show, I´m talking about games  that have supernatural creatures in it or that is based on the supernatural. I think Blood Rayne touched the supernatural a bit but I doubt people really played that game for that, I think the red headed dhampir had a more convincing way of grabbing the attention of gamers. Of course that´s not a problem, having an attractive main character isn´t that distracting...most of the time at least. I´m thinking more o...

Has your account ever been hacked? You might think that the chance of being hacked is very small but actually it happens a lot more than you might think. Yesterday I got a message that someone with another email tried to change my information with my WoW account. I have to admit that I haven´t used that in years, but still to see some stranger messing with that seems unacceptable. So the first thing I tried was to stop this from happening, but what can you do? I think one of the first things you do when you´re hacked is looking for information or trying to get in touch with game support. That seems simple, right? Wrong! Have you ever tried to get in touch with someone? Well when it comes to game support then that´s not always easy, because they´ll send you through a long list of automatic answers and other bullshit before anyone actually wants to help you personally. I mean what happened to helping your customers? Now all that happens is being send from one place to the other and not...

When I look at the pointless comments on youtube or the random messages I get on Xboxlive then I can´t believe that this would be true. Eventhough it´s our main way of interacting with other humans, it´s often just horrible the way people communicate. I´m not even talking about deliberately writing words the wrong way, because as annoying that is I guess language develops over time and as much as the current generation might hate it things do change. No my problem is the type of messages people send to eachother, mostly random nonsense that has no information or worth at all. Of course a random sms is ok, but when people actually reply to messages talking about a kill in a game then I really wonder what the hell you´re doing! I know that the Kinect is working with voice commands, which helps you control the Xbox One a bit easier. Well I say easier but I think we all know that things are far from easy when it comes to the Xbox One voice commands. Because sometimes they´re a bit rusty ...

Happy new year everyone! I hope you all had a good and safe changing of the year, maybe some of you actually spend the evening and night playing games? It´s weird in a way really, because one moment you´re in the X-mas and new year cebrations and then you´re in January, suddenly everything is back to normal and you have to get on with school or work. With games it´s a bit different I think, because in December you might get some nice releases but usually at the start of the new year you don´t get much interesting releases. Sometimes you might get lucky and a game releases early in the year because it didn´t launch at the end of the year, so I guess it´s not always a bad thing. With the new consoles and a lot of new games on the way I think 2014 will be a good year for games, especially for those who will finally be able to play on the new consoles this year because they´re delayed in some countries. What are you looking forward to in 2014? So which games can you expect in 2014? Hm th...