Does swearing make a better game?

After playing a lot of recent titles, I’ve noticed a lot of heavy hitters will either have a lot of swearing, or none at all. It might be something that has never crossed your mind before, but for me it has, and sometimes too much swearing can be a bit overbearing.

First, let’s compare two games

Bioshock Infinite, a remarkable game that even got perfect scores on some gaming sites. With such a mind-blowing ending and terrific writing, his game has potential to win game of the year. So with that said, let’s look at last year’s game of the year juggernaut.

The Walking Dead, (Telltale) TWD really brought a true point-and-click adventure like experience and didn’t rely on crazy special effects, action, or skill in order to enjoy it. What it had was a brilliant script, amazing voice acting, and a comic book aesthetic that really came to life.

Bioshock Infinite has absolutely no REAL swearing like you see in a lot of games today. Look at a lot of big titles in the past few years like your Call of Dutys, Gears of Wars, your Battlefields, your Assassins Creeds, your Far Crys, your Tomb Raiders, need I go on? Sure, what these games have in common is they’re all shooters besides Assassins Creed, but these games all swear enough to make your mother’s cry themselves to sleep at night. These games do somewhat well, but in the long run, they’re all just the same mediocre titles that shout at you and have awful writing that needs swearing to get their point across.

There is a lot of swearing and big bad cuss words in The Walking Dead. Hell, almost every sentence Kenny says has the word fuck in it. However, look at the situation, it’s the apocalypse, everyone is dead or is dying in front of them. People are losing their families and a lot of them are having to put down the people they love themselves so they don’t become some sort of monster they’re trying to avoid. I think in a situation such as this, cursing and swearing the worst of words is kind of a waste to get upset over. The writing in TWD is done so well that when they do swear, you can get a real sense of emotion that the characters are trying to convey. In most games today like the Call of Duty games, the F bomb is dropped all over the place in the writing, because the script is just bad. The need to overpopulate a game with swearing only proves that you can’t come up with anything better to say.
We are in a day and age where people have become so desensitized to swearing that you even hear your fucks and shits and even nudity on prime time television. Does this mean that they are slowly becoming not much of a big deal anymore? Or are we just getting stupider? I for one don’t appreciate something as much when it swears so much that it starts to become all you hear. The Walking Dead did a decent job in giving each of the characters their own personalities, so some characters swore more than others. The swearing in TWD didn’t bother me one bit, because of how well the entire game as a whole was written.

Bioshock Infinite does take place in the early 1900′s, when cursing and swearing was some real serious taboo. Could that be the reason why it wasn’t present? I don’t remember off the top of my head, but I would have to play Bioshock again to see if they swear a lot in that one which takes place about 30 years later. This could be said for almost any game.

Take notice in the games you play, pay attention to what you hear.

If you have more than 2 fucks per minute in a video game, I feel like the writer’s had nothing else to rely on to make their story more entertaining.

“For every ‘fuck’ you write in your script, I give one less.” I like to think I’m pretty clever sometimes.

New Game by Paradox just announced! Runemaster!

Runemaster is an RPG set in a fantasy realm based in the rich, majestic traditions of Norse mythology, casting each player in the role of a unique champion in a time of chaotic upheaval. Procedural maps and quests will ensure that no two playthroughs are identical, allowing players to tell a saga that is uniquely their own. Explore vast vistas through the six worlds of Norse myth, command troops in tactical combat, and define your champion through the choices they make.

“Creating an RPG is something new for Paradox Development Studio, and it’s been a dream project we’ve wanted to undertake for a long time now,” said Johan Andersson, Studio Manager at Paradox Development Studio. “We’re always playing RPGs in our spare time and discovering new things we love about them as a game genre; it was only natural that sooner or later we’d have to design our own. Runemaster is the result, and we know our fans will love it.”


Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctn_X6UYKwc&hd=1

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Open Beta Has Begun

Today is the day (As of the 21st) ! If you are one of the unlucky ones to not be invited to the closed beta test of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, then listen up! After months of speculation, the open beta has officially begun. You can download both the PC and Mac clients on the official Hearthstone beta page.

What's different about the open beta? For starters, we can expect less dramatic card changes. This means that those who fancy themselves as expert deck builders will not have to worry about their decks becoming obsolete due to changing stats. We can also expect that most of the bugs are fixed, with only a few stragglers left.

Hearthstone is an amazing card game and it will be exciting to play against all the new players who are getting used to the over 300 cards. However, please be aware that this is still a beta and some bugs may still exist.

Right now, it appears the open beta is only for North America, but Blizzard has stated that it will be moving to other regions over the next few days.

So get downloading already, and I’ll see you in Hearthstone!

+Blizzard Entertainment 
+Hearthstone 
+PC Gaming Shack 
++Gaming  

A Look back at Super Mario World

It’s been a long time since I’ve really tried to play Super Mario World from a dedicated perspective. Considering that the game is now available on Wii U Virtual Console, it gives me time to chill out and play some classics on my game pad without having to leave my bed, pretty cool.

Super Mario Bros 3 will always be my absolute favorite, but this is about Super Mario World, arguably the best in the series. I did a 100% completion of Super Mario World when I was around 12-13 years old, so it’s been a while since I’ve gotten into it, and what the hell…this game makes the new Mario Wii games look like baby games.

Super Mario Bros. Wii (1 and 2) and Wii U are such easy games in comparison with Super Mario World. I must have lost 15 lives in 10 minutes just trying to get to one little spot for a 1UP before I realized I’m not really gaining anything and I should just skip it. There are levels where Bullet Bills are just flying at you from every direction. The controls feel a little more slippery when running. There are hidden levels that you have to unlock by finding keys that are in no way just super easy to find.

What does Super Mario Bros. Wii have? 3 coins for each level. Collect them all! You win!

This isn’t to say that the new Mario games aren’t fun, because they are, and they’re especially fun when you’re playing with 3 other people and it turns into a crazy battle royale for coins and everyone struggles to not fall down into pits because you all bounce off eachother. But in the Wii games, when it comes to difficulty, everything is tuned down to disappointing levels. I mean hell, the A button is a suicide button unless you’re playing with a friend, and I specifically remember playing with someone who wasn’t confident in a jump that would just let me cross it and they would turn into a bubble and float over to me. Easy mode.

We need more classic style Mario games that play like Super Mario World, where I feel like there is a real challenge at the heart of the game, rather than just better graphics, weird powerups that don’t feel entirely needed, and silly sound effects. Maybe there is some hope in the future.

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/D1scR3adErr0r

+Super Mario
+Retroware
+Retro Gaming
++Gaming
+Old School Gaming 

Hand-holding seems to be a huge problem in video games

I like to think I’m an intelligent gamer, and I’m intelligent enough to know that my opinion doesn’t speak for anyone else, (though it might) but I think difficulty is what makes me most upset in modern gaming… Or better yet the lack of difficulty.

Now you might be saying, “But there are plenty of difficult games! Call of Duty on Veteran is a nightmare! Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are some of the hardest games ever created! Put up the difficulty, you bitch!”

That’s not my point, though. Maybe “challenge” is a better word than difficulty. There is more to a difficult game than making it hard. I miss the nostalgic difficulty of not knowing what is exactly going on. Zelda is a great example, if you ask me, because the original game is probably one of the hardest games ever created. I know some of you may claim “Pfft! Blah-blah was such a harder game!” and it may be true but I would say “Shut up, nerds! You don’t know anything because…” Where was this going?

Hand-holding! That was the point. Yes.

Hand-holding seems to be a huge freaking problem in video games. I get the concept, I’m not a naive gamer. I understand that Dead Rising has that little map navigation line-thingy because gamers aren’t all hardcore and they want some help figuring out where the hell they have to go. This is why things in games you can interact with always glow or something, or walls you can break have cracks in them. When you break it down? It just becomes a huge game of lock and key. Games make it obvious that something can be done and you need to find the right ‘key’ to do it. It might be a certain weapon, or ability, or item, or whatever… My fear is that this erases so much mystery.

It’s been a long time since I felt it was my own ‘smarts’ that got me through a problem. Uncharted has sometimes gotten this right. Naughty Dog presents you with generally no help outside of a few clues from Drake’s journal, and even if the puzzle WAS simple (to hell with you Uncharted 3’s board game-like puzzle) you felt like Indiana Jones after you completed it… You felt like a bad-ass. Sometimes.

I bought 3D Dot Game Heroes (which is a great game) and I was so excited for a throw back to “Old School”, but I got bored about half-way into it because it felt like it had the same hand holding issues that plague the modern Zelda titles… It was just harder cause you died a lot.

I guess rolling back on the Zelda references isn’t expanding my points but it’s the feeling I miss. The original Zelda had no plot. Well, I guess technically it had a plot, but nothing that couldn’t be summarized in a few sentences. You were dropped into this world, with really no idea where to go or what to do and you slowly just figured things out and… Ya know what? It felt like a freaking adventure. It had mystery. It had action. It had suspense. It had tension. I was afraid, I was filled with joy, I was filled with confusion, I was filled with EMOTIONS.

I realize I sound like some kinda Nostalgia-Twat. I don’t feel that the current industry of gaming is in a bad spot, I don’t think that every game needs to be classically hard and impossible. I just miss the feelings. Journey (not the band, the PSN game) is an example of the type of game I want. Just exploring a world and enjoy the adventure. Yes, there are open world games that let you explore but the worlds never seem to have any real life to them. Shadow of the Colossus did a great job of creating a real world and making me feel like I was exploring it. Even if that world was only occupied by walking giants and lizards… And there is Skyrim (a modern game, yo) which did a pretty good job as well… But it was plagued with other issues that got in the way, but that’s another story.

Maybe one day I will feel like I’m on an adventure again. That Christmas feeling, feeling like a child that is completely bewildered by everything going on around him. What an awesome feeling.

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/D1scR3adErr0r

What Nintendo Needs to do with the Wii-U

Hey Guys. What is going on guys, D1scR3adErr0r here with a little blog regarding my thoughts on the Wii-U so far and what I would like to see for it in future. I had solid faith in the Wii-U before it launched, which is why I was an early promoter and purchased it with a friend during the first week of release. It’s just that some decisions made surrounding the launch confuse me and leave a sour taste in my mouth considering it had such potential.

When the Wii-U was showcased in more detail at E3 2012 with its actual console design and launch titles, I became more excited and had more faith in the console than I had with the original Wii. This time around there was a killer first party app, Pikmin 3, great third party exclusives namely  Zombi-U and Rayman Legends, and a strong selection of launch titles to play like Scribblenauts Unlimited. Then the delays came…which I understand, delays happen but to the point where the Wii-U launched with almost no content, I didn’t. For those of us who purchased a Wii-U at release, we basically had only two new titles to play, New Super Mario Bros U and Zombi-U. Both fun games in their own right, but many people are SICK of the traditional Mario, and I am one of them. I do own New Super Mario Bros U because I needed something to play at launch, and Zombi-U didn’t and still doesn’t feel like it deserves a sixty dollar price tag.

The games available for the system now are mostly third party multi-platform games which I’ve either  played the living hell out of or titles that don’t interest me. Mass Effect 3, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and Batman Arkham City are just a few of the titles that have been released on the Wii-U that have been out for quite some time on console and PC. Realistically speaking, did Nintendo and the third party publishers really think people would spend sixty dollars on games they have already played?

Nintendo NEEDS to show us what this system is truly capable of, we’ve seen the specifications. We’ve seen the hardware and we’ve seen people benchmark said hardware.  But we need a game that can really push the Wii-U to its limits and prove to gamers that it is a worthwhile console. Will it be Bayonetta 2? You know…if that game actually stays exclusive, just look at what happened to Rayman Legends.

The Wonderful 101 was a fun game, but not a title that will push any envelopes. Nintendo may have to wait until the next Legend of Zelda or 3D Mario game to really push the boundaries of the Wii-U. I do plan on playing the living shit out of Monster Hunter, but it won’t be a big seller in the states though apparently, Monster Hunter is digital crack over in Japan. I really do want to see this system do well because I still love Legend of Zelda, Kirby, and Super Smash Brothers, but I do have to slightly agree with the notion that the Wii-U’s launch was stale when you compare it to the Wii’s launch. This thing is just not selling like Nintendo said it would. Get on the ball, Nintendo.

Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/D1scR3adErr0r

Always the Birth of a Hero,Never the Death!

Something just recently came to me, even though it has always been in my face this whole time. Why is it in every Legend of Zelda game, we witness the birth of a hero, as he overcomes a new threat to the land of Hyrule, but never his end? According to the actual Zelda timeline that was confirmed by Nintendo, we now know what games are in order, what happens between each story, and every parallel universe within the lore.

Off the top of my head, I can only think of one Zelda game that ends on a note that gives a little more closure than others, which is Ocarina of Time. That is, only if you go by the timeline of Link staying as a child. There are two more timelines that coexist and split off after Ocarina of time, those being if Link fails, if he returns to the past being a Child, or if he stays an adult. Like for instance, what happens to Link when he stays an adult? What is his life like until he inevitably dies? I’d like to believe that there is only one Master Sword throughout all of the games, and only one hylian shield. Why don’t we ever get to see an ending where Link actually dies, not violently, but even from old age? What about an adult Link that is in his late 20?s or 30?s?

I would love to see a Legend of Zelda game where Link hangs up his sword and shield, or puts them away to be opened again for the next generation. I’d like to see the fall of a hero, and it doesn’t have to even be in a negative light.

I’m still playing through Skyward Sword and enjoying my time with it. I still am looking forward to the birth of the lore behind the series.

How many times have we pulled the Master Sword from the stone? We’ve seen it get placed back in a few games, if not most of them, Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past come in mind here, but what I’d be interested to see is a story about Link’s fall, even if it’s old age or something tragic. I do see a bad thing about all of this if they did such a thing, they would probably make sequels to specific games and I’m not sure how fond I’d be of that. We don’t need the same thing in Final Fantasy to happen to Legend of Zelda. We don’t ever need a “The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening 2: Link Awakens Again”.

Maybe I’m rambling, but I’m hoping that there is someone out there that can understand where I’m coming from. I’d like to see a not so much of a happy ending to a Zelda game, but something that ties to the fall of Link rather than everything being great and going back to normal.

Perhaps if they didn’t release this official timeline, I wouldn’t be pondering such things. I liked it better when it was all up to the interpretation of the players. I liked it better thinking that every game was it’s own game and none of them tied together.

Life used to be so easy!

Twitter: 

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N4G Article (Please Approve if it is not): 

 http://n4g.com/news/1441531/always-the-birth-of-a-hero-never-the-death/pen