Confessions of a gamer

After seeing the latest trailer of Assassin´s Creed Unity I saw an assassin coming to the aid of a templar, at least this woman was wearing a necklace with the symbol of the templars around her neck so I take it that means she´s in league with this faction. But that didn´t change the fact that the assassin rescued her from being executed. So what does that mean? It´s a deal? The most logic answer would be that it´s a deal, you made a deal with the templars or at least someone to rescue her so they´re going to help you with something else. Maybe it´s even a favor or to repay a debt, that would also make sense to me. But still the other assassins might not be too happy with this decision, because the templars are the enemy and to rescue one of them could be considered as an act of betrayal! The assassin (Arno) doesn´t know? It could be that Arno doesn´t know that he rescued a templar, until he sees the necklace. There was this moment when you see it and he could be just as much surpr...

After the story trailer I saw this awesome short teaser trailer of CoD AW multiplayer and it looks awesome! It´s fast and looks like a lot of fun, because movement is greatly motivated in this multiplayer. Thanks to the boost you can strafe left or right with ease and dodge bullets while returning the favor to the agressor. Which means people can actually learn to dodge bullets with grace and then quickly return fire for a nice kill. So no more campers? Hah there will always be campers in games like CoD, some people have just no skill at all or are so fucking lazy that they would rather spend hours sitting in a corner than to actually go out there and get some kills. Well it´s their loss, because I think my seek and destroy type of gaming in first person shooters will definately find a good spot in this multiplayer. It´s fast and it´s deadly, so anyone with slow reflexes might want to avoid this...unless you´re a camper. So just boosts or is there more news? Well...

I think a lot of CoD gamers on the Playstation 3 and/or 4 are familiar with the unfair advantage that Xbox 360 and Xbox One players have when it comes to dlc. Because they get it a month earlier and that´s not really fair, but it´s business as Microsoft made a deal (in other words gave a lot of money to make certain that this would happen) about this dlc advantage. But with these deals don´t help anyone, they actually hurt players as it´s less fun when you have to wait longer for the same stuff that others can already play. Does this happen a lot? More often than you think, just think of the deal between Bungie and Sony. This means exclusives for Playstation 3 and 4 players in the game Destiny, it might seem that this doesn´t matter but it can have some serious nasty side effects for Microsoft if Destiny becomes very popular and that these exclusives make people prefer to play on the Playstation 3 and 4! Once again one side (Xbox 360 and Xbox One players) get screwed and the other si...

This was my first game for the Xbox 360, I still don´t know why I picked this game with the console because it would make more sense that I picked a game that also had a nice multiplayer so if friends would come over we could still play together. But somehow I picked a single player game that was a mystery to me, I only heard some things about this this game and nothing that really made me want to buy it. Still I picked this game because it looks interesting and I like that you can play the game the way you want to. You can pick your own gender, race and class. So I was curious how this would work out on a console because usually you see these type of games (rpg) on the pc. Well I can say that I wasn´t disappointed! So what do you do in this game? First of all you´re in prison, but you manage to escape when the emperor and his guards need to make use of the secret escape route hidden in your cell. You take a different route but end up meeting them again, somehow the emperor trusts yo...

I think the main reason to play games is to have fun, but how we have fun depends on the person. Some people have fun playing games solo, others have fun with friends and then there are people that have fun making the lives of others miserable. Which means that your fun comes at the expense of others, often strangers you don´t know. I don´t mind a bit of teasing myself but there is a point where you´re crossing a line or when you´re just being pathetic with attempts to annoy others. Annoying other people is an art? If you want to do it right and be unique then yes it´s an art, if you just want to do what many others do and just be blunt then no it´s not an art. When I see comments under a youtube video then at least 25% of those comments are people trying to annoy others, often with asking dumb questions or saying things that will most likely get you a negative response. I think a lot of people are familiar with the first comment, then there are people that just copy something someon...

I´m not talking about movie that is based upon a game, no I´m talking about games with cutscenes and graphics that make it feel as if you´re watching a movie. It might seem silly but have you seen the cinematic trailer of the Master Chief collection? Amazing! Of course this is just a trailer, there is absolutely no guarantee that this is what the game will give us, but it´s nice to see that it´s possible! Are graphics important? For me it´s important that I can see what´s going on, if I have to stare to be able to play the game then that´s not a good thing, but I personally don´t really care about fancy graphics. But that doesn´t mean that I don´t appreciate it, I mean if a game looks awesome then that´s a nice bonus! I just don´t want the game to suffer because of that, when developers spend so much time on making a game look pretty and then the gameplay and story are absolutely crap. That´s just not worth it! I´m glad that this doesn´t happen a lot, so I think most developers under...

It´s probably the worst news for a gamer, well maybe not the worst because a game that is cancelled and you were looking forward to playing that game might be even worse. But that doesn´t make it less bad, you were hoping to play the game in just a couple of months and now you have to wait another month or sometimes even a year! It´s not a surprise that this makes people upset, so maybe we can calm things down by figuring out why are games delayed. But seriously, why are games delayed? A release date isn´t something you can depend on? I think a release date is more of an idea when the game might come out, oh sure some developers will promise you things but a release date isn´t always set in stone! But some developers go out of their way to get the game ready before the release date, it seems simple but that´s far from the truth! Some developers are even known for pushing the release date, sometimes several times. It´s frustrating that this happens and I wish that there ...

It seems easy, making a super hero game. But in reality this isn´t true, not many developers have managed to make something memorable and when you look at the amount of super hero games then that´s not a good thing! But why is it so difficult? Some heroes have powers that make them almost impossible as a character in a game, unless it´s a weaker version of the hero or all the villains get an upgrade so they´re a match for the hero. I think Superman is one of those heroes that is close to impossible, because he is so powerful that your ordinary thug can´t stand a chance against him but to flood the world with evil Kryptonians just seems weird. Also ideas for rogue Superman clones is something people don´t want to see. Which means you either fly around over the world as an overpowered character that can´t be beaten which is boring or you face the risk of being beaten by a simple street thug because he knocks you out if you take enough damage. You can see how this makes it difficult to ...

Often when I think of a typical mmorpg I look at World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2, eventhough Guild Wars 2 is free to play which isn´t that typical. But consoles aren´t that lucky with having a succesful mmorpg, sure Defiance is doing pretty good (thanks to the popular tv show) but that´s one of many that is doing well. So what chance does Destiny have? The latest news I heard about Destiny is that it´s not going to be just one game with a lot of expansions, instead they´re going to make Destiny 2 and 3 as well. You can visit these games with your character(s) from the first Destiny game, this allows you to have a type of Shepard character that makes his or her way through the story. But unlike Shepard your character in Destiny doesn´t speak, which means you have a mute character that just follows orders. I´m actually quite upset about this because I thought we´re at a point where we can have talking playable characters in a mmorpg, just look at Star Wars the Old Republic! So why ...

I´ve been evading a lot of news around the Sims 4, mostly because I try not to get sucked into the hype around it. Eventhough there are a lot of negative comments out there where people accuse the Sims 4 of being the Sims 3.5 or just more more of the same stuff. This is nothing new though, because this is stuff I already heard about the Sims 2 and that one wasn´t exactly the same as the Sims! So what´s so different about the Sims 4? From what I´ve learned so far things go much faster, which means building a sim and a house is now stuff you do by pulling and pushing objects or body parts with your mouse. This takes away a lot of menus and makes it easier to build things and less of a challenge, at the same time you can add new sims and houses with the click of a button on a page where everyone can share their creations. In the Sims 3 you had to install this from a different site but in the Sims 4 you can do this in the game while playing! You also have more personality in your sim...

You might have heard about this game, even if you haven´t played it then you´re probably familiar with the love or hate people have for this game. The love usually comes from the challenge this game will give you and the hate? Well that´s actually the same thing, the challenge is just too much for some people. It wasn´t an easy ride for me and it will take a lot of tries to actually make it through as a button bashing moron, which is usually my way of playing hack and slash games. Well Ninja Gaiden isn´t that type of game and just pressing buttons will most likely get you killed! I first played Dead or Alive 2 before I played Ninja Gaiden, so I was familiar with some of the characters. I also played one of the older NES games, but that´s so long ago that I could barely remember anything from that game. I do remember that these games aren´t easy, so I thought I was well prepared when I first played it. Well I was wrong, I wasn´t ready for this game and after a couple of days I stopped...

I like to believe that most gamers play games for fun, I´m one of those people and when I play games I want to have fun. Unfortunately there are also people online that play games for other reasons, often to annoy others in whatever way possible. It´s true that this is fun for them, but if that fun comes at the expense of others then that´s not the type of fun I´d appreciate! But who are these people? To figure that out I´ll first take a look at some personal experience on this subject, because I think we´ve all been a scumbag in a game at some point. When I play games with others then I do my best to win, at least if it´s a competitive game. If it´s a cooperative game then I´d still prefer to be the guy with the highest score, not to have bragging rights or anything but just because I like to win. When people annoy me in some way, which could be people that deliberately try to annoy you or people that use cheap tricks to succeed, then the nice part of the match is gone for me. When ...

Let me first explain what I mean with this, old fashioned gaming is just you playing a game on your computer or console while modern gaming is you playing games with virtual reality or other hardware and/or software to add something extra to your gaming experience. Maybe old fashioned isn´t the right word for it but sometimes it does feel that way, especially when you see all the things people use now to make games more interesting for them. You don´t need modern technology? Well I wouldn´t say that, where would be without modern technology? I for one wouldn´t be able to type this and post it online, but also gaming itself wouldn´t not exist without modern technology. The thing is that technology doesn´t stand still, sure there are moments where things go fast and you see new things every year. But there are also decades where things go a bit slower, that doesn´t mean that there isn´t any movement at all! So in a way it´s not weird that gaming becomes so much more than what I grew up...

After reading a lot of negative and sometimes hateful comments about the new Captain America being black it made me wonder if it´s the same in games, when they take a familiar character and give him or her a new look. The good thing about some games is that you can customize your own character, which means that you decide how he or she will look. I think the Mass Effect trilogy is a good example of  that, because you can create your own version of Commander Shepard, then he or she will be shown like that in every cutscene and in every dialogue. But is it always that simple? Attachment leads to the dark side? If you believe Yoda and you´re into Star Wars then that might be true, but I don´t think that there is anything wrong with a little bit of attachment. For example I like Link the way he looks in the ocarina of time and twilight princess, the mature and still cool looking guy in green. I know that they changed his look a bit in the wind waker and I was actually upset about tha...

When I played my first fighting game, Street Fighter, there was only one playable female character. Eventhough this female character, Chun-Li, doesn´t look exactly as she did back then (yes I´m talking about those ridiculous thighs!) she´s still one of the pioneers in the fighting game genre. In other Street Fighter games more women were introduced and also other games had their fair share of women, up to a point where you have as much men as women in a fighting game. But with female characters being so popular in fighting games it´s more and more likely that the men might become extinct because there are already games out there with only female characters. Not all of these games are fantastic but it does show that you can have a fighting game with only women but not one with only men, oh wait maybe Killer Instinct? Wrong there was also a female character in that game! People enjoy watching women fight? If with people you mean teenage guys then yes, well I´m not saying that adults or...

It might seem crazy to some but we do live in the 21th century so I think it´s not that weird that women are finally getting bigger roles in movies and also in games. Sometimes women take over the role of a man, what I mean with that is that some women play the part that a man used to play. Which in real life can be the person that provides for the family, but in a movie, comic or game it can be taking over a name or power. As you might have heard already, the new Thor is a woman and is a good example of this. The new Thor is a woman? Yes a woman, no the original Thor didn´t get a sex change and no this isn´t an alternate dimension version, this is a woman that wields Thor´s hammer (Mjölnir) and is named Thor. How this all works, since Thor is a name and not a title which is by the way a male name, I don´t know. But it´s not the first time that this happened, I think some of you probably know Captain Marvel and how Ms Marvel became the new Captain Marvel. The difference with this...

Some people say that fighting games are just like certain first person shooters (CoD to name one) because every year there is another game and nothing really changes. This might be true for some games, for example Street Fighter 4 came out several times and usually just with some extra characters and let´s not forget about Marvel vs Capcom 3! But other fighting games only appear once every 3 to 4 years, for example Tekken doesn´t appear every year and the new Tekken (number 7) is supposed to be the last one. At least they call it the final battle, what that really means remains to be seen! How can anyone play fighting games? I guess some people wonder the same thing when it comes to role playing games or first person shooters, to name some other popular genres. My problem with fighting games is that I get frustrated and annoyed with it quite fast, which means I´m not having fun and I don´t really want to play anymore. So that seems like a waste of money to me, but I don´t fi...

I´m pretty certain that most guys are familiar with the Dead or Alive games, probably because the women in this game have some over the top breasts that seem to bounce like crazy when they move. Which is of course ridiculous but apparently it doesn´t hurt to put that in the game because it´s a popular game series that stays strong over the years. Dead or Alive 2 was my first Dead or Alive game, it´s easy to think I bought this game for the bouncing breasts but to be honest I just wanted a fighting game and this game has some interesting characters. For example Ryu (from Ninja Gaiden), Hayate (in DoA 2 he´s called Ein) and Jann Lee (the Bruce Lee kind of guy). So people don´t play this game for the female characters? Oh I wouldn´t say that, I mean let´s be honest and not ignore the fact that there are a lot of female character in DoA 2! I don´t know how this works for other gamers but I don´t pick a character for the way they look, I pick a character for the moves and something that w...

No matter how nice you are or how civilized you might be, in a game things can be quite different. One moment you´re fine and the other moment you can rage like a lunatic, it all depends on how you react to certain situations and of course certain people. But the worst part of this is to find yourself in a video on youtube where some asshole makes fun of your misfortune! You´re on youtube looking like a fool, what do you do? Well there isn´t much you can do, I would definately not comment on the video and draw more attention to it. If you´re lucky it´s just a video by some random douchebag and nobody has interest in it, if you´re unlucky people will like it and it will get a lot of views. I guess it really depends on how good the video looks and sounds, but of course also how bad the rage is in the video. If you just say some insults I doubt it´s anything special, but if you go crazy with anger then I wouldn´t be surprised that people will show more interest. Just ignore it and if yo...

To some voice acting is an art but others think it´s just an easy way to make money, but what is it really? As a kid watching Disney movies I didn´t really think much of it, to be honest I didn´t really focus on that. But later in animated movies and games I did realize that there is a difference between good and bad voice acting, even experienced Hollywood actors can sometimes suck at voice acting. Maybe because it´s not really their thing, they weren´t really motivated or the script just sucks. You don´t have to be famous to be a voice actor? Well it depends how you look at it, in the voice actor community and fans of course some names are pretty famous, but it wouldn´t suprise me that outside the world of games that people might have never heard of these people. But let´s not forget that voice actors also play roles in series or movies! No matter how small their role might be in these series or movies they definately left their mark in some games. Is it easy for someone n...

I wish I could say how it was in the early years of first person shooters but I joined the ride in Black Ops, which isn´t that long ago. Of course I´ve played first person shooters just not highly competitive first person shooters. But the moment I started playing multiplayer in CoD Black Ops I realized that it´s not about reflexes or experience, it´s about picking a spot and holding that for as long as you can. Not for honour, not for glory but for your k/d. Does your k/d matter? A lot of die hard gamers will often scream how important you k/d is, while others will laugh at the mention of any importance to your k/d. So does it really matter? I don´t think so, because k/d isn´t an accurate way of actually showing if a player is good or not. But a high k/d means you have more kills than deaths, doesn´t that mean something? Yes it means you got a lot of kills, but it doesn´t tell anyone how you got those kills. Did you actually hunt people down or did you camp in a corner? Because peop...

A lot of times when I see videos on youtube there are comments that try to convince or lure people to their channel, sometimes it´s pretty desperate and sometimes it´s actually quite sincere. But it still comes down to one thing, check out my videos! Why do you make videos on youtube? I think in the early days it was just for fun, to share a cool video with other people. But when some people had a lot of succes with their videos and actually made money of that then it didn´t take long for other people to try the same thing. Because earning money with uploading videos seems easy, well it´s not that easy actually. This is something a lot of people figured out when they started their youtube adventure. I think about half of the people that wanted to earn some money with uploading videos quit within the first year probably because of a lack of succes or perhaps because it was more work then they first thought. Which is where I go back to why people first started uploading videos on youtu...

It might seems weird but there are definately games based on books, stories or comic books. Sometimes it´s just the character from a comic, for example Batman or Spiderman. I don´t think I need to mention that there are movie games, these games usually don´t have a good name but there are certainly exceptions that have proven to be pretty good! But which one is better, movie games or (comic) book games? It´s all about the story? This is what´s important to me, so that makes (comic) book games often a bit more interesting for me to play. But that doesn´t mean I don´t enjoy movie games, it´s just that these games aren´t always following the story of the movie and don´t always feel like you´re playing scenes from the movie. Sometimes you play a level in a movie game that has no relation to the movie at all! Some like that, I´m not a big fan of that. Especially when it´s in the middle of the story, so you follow the story from the movie and suddenly you´re in a place you don´t know and h...

It seems like there have always been console wars, well maybe not from the start but Nintendo and Sega didn´t really get along that well in the early years. But without communication systems we have now it wasn´t a big deal in those days. Maybe some kids talked shit about other kids that played on another console but to most kids back then they were all nerds! But now gaming is cool, hell you´re even considered as a loser if you don´t play games (yes that suprised me as well), and people play games a lot! Unfortunately with our modern communication technology people also find ways to reach others all over the world and what do they talk about? My console is better than yours! Sigh... Is one console really better than the others? I guess if you look at what a console can do then one will most likely be better than the other, but I don´t think that´s what it´s all about. No matter how cool your console is, if the games on that console are lame then who really cares that it looks sweet ...

I think a lot of mmorpg players have at least heard of Guild Wars, I wouldn´t be surprised if a lot of them also played the game. And why not? It´s free to play so once you buy the game you don´t have to pay for anything else! Well you can buy the add ons or in game items, but that´s something you choose to do and not something you need to do to play. I think it´s thanks to this free to play system that Guild Wars became such a big succes, but the game itself is also pretty good! Isn´t Guild Wars some cheap World of Warcraft copy? I´m certain that some WoW fan boys or girls would call it something like that, but in truth it´s actually something different. Sure some of the classes look like the classes in WoW and eventhough the names are different it comes down to the same thing, but I don´t think that makes it a cheap copy! Something I consider a huge difference is the type of people that play these games, I´m not saying it´s all good in one game and completely crap in the other but ...

Harsh words are often spoken in competitive games, these are often insults towards others hoping to make them angry and that it will affect their skills in the game for the worse. But what if someone is actually intimidating someone else? What kind of effect does that have? The main reason to intimidate is to demoralize others, at least that seems most logic to me. At least it would affect their performance in the game, which then would grant the intimidators a chance to strike them down. But it doesn´t always have to be a group, sometimes it´s just one person trying to intimidate the others in the match. I do think that a group of intimidators has more effect than just one person that intimidates others, because a group stands stronger than just one person. I don´t think we all respond the same towards intimidation, because some of us will be angry while others might be more careful. Then there are those that aren´t affected by the intimidation, usually because they´re familiar wi...

It seems like a simple question but for me it usually raises more questions, probably because I have a yes and a no answer. A lot of competitive games will put you up against other players and that might put a hostile vibe in the match, because even when you´re friends in real life in this match you´re enemies and you have to beat the other to win. It seems serious but it´s not, unfortunately some people take it a bit too far. There is no friendship in competitive games? That´s not true, because there are friends that play competitive games and even when there is hostility then this is only for a certain amount of time. The more focused you are on winning then you want to avoid losing at all costs! Which might make you less friendly and thus more hostile towards others, maybe even your friends. But this is just during the match, people that do bring this hostility with them after a match aren´t really good friends. So eventhough you´re expected to beat others, there is nothing that s...

I think a lot of people that go online are familiar with random invites, wether you´re logged on a site or even with your game profile. It´s not a suprise that most of these random invites come from people with a sketchy profile, even when the profile is ok then it´s the case of accepting the random invite because there are people out there that prefer to first get to know someone before you become friends or talk online in a game lobby. People are social, right? Well not everyone is social, I mean it´s easy to say that we´re all social because we have so many ways of communicating with eachother but that doesn´t have to mean anything. I have moments that I prefer to just play solo or just watch a movie, I´m not looking for people to talk to or games to join. But that doesn´t keep people from bothering you with a random invite. To me it´s pretty simple, if someone can´t make the effort to first send a message before the invite then I´m not interested. I don´t like random invites and ...

With new games like Call of Duty Advanced Warfare and Titanfall I can´t help but wonder what kind of effect this will have on other first person shooters. Because if games like that are succesful then other developers won´t sit still and stick to the same old stuff or will they? Isn´t this what the people want? I think CoD gets the most hate out of all the first person shooters, most arguments (if one could call them that) are based on the never changing way of playing the game. But that´s changed with CoD AW, because you´re faster and stronger than before! You have a special armor on that will enhance your powers and grant you new abilities, for example a jetpack to reach higher places or a special glove that allows you to climb on certain walls. Some people are excited about this but then there are also a lot of people that hate this, they whine that they want the old CoD back. Seriously? So one moment everyone hates the same old shit and now people whine that they don´t want this ...

A lot of times in online multiplayer I see how high prestige levels are mixed with low levels, often people who haven´t even prestiged or got far with leveling. It´s wrong to mix that up, because the prestige levels will often dominate the low levels, maybe some would disagree but this is just the way it is. So it comes down to the developers to make certain that people of the same skill play together, but how do you do that? It´s easy to say that k/d would determine that, but let´s not forget that a lot of people camp in first person shooters so that will usually give them a higher k/d then they really deserve. Then you have a big chance to get a game full of campers, then no one wins! How about looking at your level? That might work, but someone that plays a lot and ranks up a lot might not always be the best player. Still it does point out that you´re at least experienced and that´s something you can use. But it would work better if the game could track your skills and put you up ...

In some countries this is much worse than violence and in other countries it´s just not accepted. Which makes sense if it would be a game for everyone but as long as you make that game for 18+ gamers then it shouldn´t be a problem, right? ´ Well it´s not that simple, because a lot of kids play games that are made for adults. Trying to keep kids from playing these games is near impossible because somehow they always get their hands on them. I think a lot of CoD players are familiar with kids that play a game made for adults. To be honest I also played games made for adults when I was a teenager, but when a game is for a 16 year old teenager and I´m 15 I don´t see the problem. Of course rules are rules and yes to make such exceptions is probably not a good idea if you want everyone to stick to the rules. But once again it´s just impossible to make everyone follow the rules because there is no way you can check if kids play games made for adults without breaking some privacy rules. So i...