Hello folks, Kelvoran Gaming here, and I’m back again after a long hiatus (health issues are a pain) to discuss some thoughts I’ve had in regards to games media and the news being reported, and first, I want to point out before we get started that this is not a dig at a particular individual or company, I will not be including names here, this is simply an opinion piece where I express my feelings on a particular subject and slap it on my blog. Got it? Good, let’s get started.
So what are the thoughts I’ve had about games media? Well, it boils down to, as you can see in the title, the use of sources. For many, many months I’ve been paying attention to games media critics and publications alike and I’ve been looking at the information they share with the public, and one thing I’ve noticed is that there is an abundance of individuals who are using Twitter or Reddit as a source for their publications, be it a video or a printed article. I will be upfront, I don’t like this. To use a quote from one of my favourite political satirists, Johnathan Pie:
“Whenever the news goes to Twitter, it means some editor, somewhere couldn’t be fucked to do their job that day.”
Johnathan Pie
Throw Reddit next to Twitter and those are my thoughts, because they’re just as bad as the other. When you’re using Twitter or Reddit as a source for your article or video, then you’re doing lazy reporting, and yes, it’s reporting if you’re talking about gaming news, even if you’re not a journalist, so spare me the whole “I’m not a journalist, I’m a critic, those rules don’t apply to me..” spiel.
Now, just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean there can’t be some truth found on those websites, hell I’ve used Twitter myself to talk to individuals in order to get clarification on certain points for my articles in the past. This can sometimes work because often enough there will be employees from companies that post on both sites, whether they are developers or CEOs, and their accounts are verified accounts. If you’re getting information from a verified account, you know that it is accurate.
The problem arises, in my opinion, when people don’t use verified accounts and just grab whatever information some rando (That’s Australian slang for random, FYI) throws up there and then decides to report on that as if it were 100% fact. I’ve seen it happen waaaaay too many times over the course of 2017, 2018 and 2019 for me to stay silent on it. Let me clue you in for a sec on something if any of those journalists or critics are reading my blog (unlikely, but hey, let’s find out)…
People lie on the internet!!
Got it? Good. Not that I expect this to change just because I pointed out this nugget of truth, but there it is. You cannot take what some random person says on the internet as a fact, not without some verifiable proof that backs up what they claim. This is why sites like Yelp and Metacritic are such a horrible place to get opinions from, because there’s no verification behind what gets posted. Anyone can pop up on either site, throw up a one star review that slags off a game/movie/company/venue with nothing but lies and then vanish into the ether. Don’t believe me? By all means go to… ironically… Reddit, specifically this subreddit and you can see plenty of cases where one star reviews have been posted, and the owner of the business has stepped in to correct the record.
Now normally, this isn’t too much of a problem. What one person on Reddit, Yelp, Metacritic or Twitter says will often be overlooked, but when you are an individual with an audience, be it 1000 people, 5000 people, 10,000 people or even 100,000 people or more, you owe it to them to fact check everything before you regurgitate it to your followers, because if you don’t then they are going to treat it as fact and THEN due to the nature of the internet, there will be people in that mob of fans who will go after the individual/company you slagged off in your article or in your video. Now granted, you can’t control them, and I am not going to sit here and claim that you should have that power, or that you should try to exert control over what your fans do, but at the very least you can verify information first as 100% accurate, then give your fans an accurate representation of the truth because potentially spinning lies which then opens up individuals to harassment is not okay (even if they’re going after a company, some poor PR sap has to read those comments, which damage him just as much as they damage the company).
And to be clear, no, it is not suddenly okay if you post an article or video slagging off a developer/publisher with no verifiable information, only to get it verified after the fact. You’re not in the clear if you’ve done that, and I know plenty of people who have done that over the years.
Just… verify your sources first okay? It’s not that hard.
Well folks, I am back after an extremely long hiatus. I do apologize for that, but my computer was busted and I couldn’t play any games on my PC or keep up with gaming news, so I had no choice but to put the blog on hold for a bit. But now I’m back, and while I’d love to talk about E3 and the various conferences that were held (at least the ones that I watched, sadly I did not watch the Devolver Digital, Ubisoft, Square Enix or Nintendo conferences) instead I’m going to talk about Shenmue 3, a game that has gotten quite a bit of attention over the past few days, notably due to the fact that it, like many other games, have become exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
Now for those of you who expect me to rip into the developers of Shenmue 3, the publishers of the title OR Epic Games for going exclusive, you may as well stop reading now, because that isn’t going to happen. I expressed my views on the Epic Store and exclusivity shortly after the first round of exclusive games were announced in a blog post that you can find here, so feel free to read that if you want a better understanding of where I stand.
Instead I want to talk about Shenmue 3 and the drama that surrounds it currently (hence the title).
So first, what is Shenmue 3? Shenmue 3 is the third game (duh) in the Shenmue series. You follow the exploits of Ryo Hazuki as he explores portions of China in an attempt to find the person responsible for the death of his father, and he’s accompanied by a traveling companion by the name of Shenhua Ling. It is a series that has established a cult-like following of dedicated fans, but the first two games were very expensive to make and ultimately ended up being financial failures even though they sold extremely well when they launched. As a result of those failures, Sega, the company that owns the Shenmue license, were hesitant to invest in a third one, which prompted the creator of Shenmue, Yu Suzuki to create Ys Net, an independent company which then leased the Shenmue license from Sega so that they could start crowdfunding efforts to act as a stepping stone for full development of Shenmue 3. The crowdfunding campaign started on Kickstarter in 2015 and ended in September 2018 and raised just over $7.1 million dollars, most of which was raised in the first 2 hours of the campaign starting.
Now fast foward to E3 2019. The PC Gaming conference where Shenmue 3 was revealed to be an Epic Games Store exclusive. Naturally many backers of the project flooded the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter page demanding a refund because they would have preferred the title launch on Steam, with some declaring the move to be a ‘betrayal of backers’, ‘false advertising’ or simply a ‘scummy move’. Some even made the claim that the game developers always promised backers a Steam key and marketed the game based on that promise, in an attempt to draw parrallels between the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign and the Phoenix Point Kickstarter campaign, another game that was crowdfunded and became an Epic exclusive.
So let’s talk about what was promised. Was a Steam key promised in any of the advertising for the game? Well the answer to that is quite simple, and that answer is ‘no’ there wasn’t. In fact, up until June 2019 the word ‘Steam’ never appeared on the Kickstarter page for the game at all, with backers of the game being promised a choice between a ‘Windows PC’ version of the game or a console version of the game. Now it’s important that you remember that date, June 2019, because if you’ve read along so far, you know that the Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue 3 ended in September 2018, meaning that backers from the moment the campaign started to the day it ended, backed a project that did not explicitly state in any advertising material that Steam would be the platform of choice.
Which is not to say that it was never on the table. Emails between backers and the developers did indicate that Steam was going to be the platform of choice, but it’s unclear when those emails were sent out. Some people are claiming that those emails were sent out before the Kickstarter campaign ended, while others are claiming that it was sent out afterward. Regardless this was something that was seemingly up in the air, with the decision not being finalized until much later.
So with backers ‘backing’ the game under the advertised condition that they were getting a ‘Windows PC’ version of the game (something that they are still getting mind you, even with the platform change), when a number of backers started demanding refunds, Ys Net made a statement which essentially said that they were sorry for the change in platform but that no refunds would be offered as a result of this change.
And that’s when the internet exploded around this issue, at least, far worse than it had already, because denying a refund is seen as a poor move from the business, but let’s look at the facts surrounding this mess and see if the internet is right, or if the team at Ys Net are right. Unfortunately there is no instant ‘yes or no’ answer here, and the reason for that boils down to politics. Generally speaking in most countries around the world, refunds are offered within certain windows of time. However while they are offered, they are not guaranteed outside of that window or if there is a clear violation of refund policy and as such the merchant has the right to refuse a refund if they feel that the request for it is not satisfactory.
This changes however in certain countries, notably the European Union and Australia, as these nations have legislation in place that forbids a merchant from refusing a refund for any reason, and makes it illegal to have ‘no refund’ policies at their business. There are other nations which also legislate consumer protection and the right to a refund, but oddly enough the United States is not one of them.
So if you’re a backer of Shenmue 3 and you’re requesting a refund, what can you do? Well if you are not in the EU, Australia or any other country that protects the right to a refund with legislation, they’re essentially out of luck (for now at least, at time of writing Ys Net seems to be sticking to their guns on this matter). You can try to put pressure on Y’s Net and see if they’ll comply with demands, but there is a high possibility that they’ll say no which will either force a legal dispute, or force a fan to abandon the game completely (possibly both). The only way to change this, outside of putting pressure on the company and convincing them to abandon their own rights for yours, is to get legislators to pass a law which protects the consumers right to a refund across the entire country.
If you are in the a refund protected country though, you absolutely have the right to said refund so you should reach out to the company and inform them of that when you request it. They will most likely comply, but in the off chance they don’t, simply reach out to the consumer watchdog of your country and report the violation. They’ll do their own investigation and if they find that the company is not complying, they will take action.
So there we have it folks. A bit of a ramble because it’s late, but I hope my point was clear. If it wasn’t, let me summarize with a TL:DR.
TL:DR: You are only guaranteed a refund by law in select countries, the customer is not always right and for countries that do not guarantee a refund by law, the merchant (in this case Ys Net) is well within their rights to refuse to give you a refund, especially if said request was made outside of the standard refund window.
Now to be honest, I didn’t want to cover this, but it’s been on my mind since this news has been making waves, and since I now finally have my computer back and I can write again, I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring and share my thoughts about this act.
So what is the ‘Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act’? Quite simply it is a piece of legislation introduced by Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican Senator from the state of Missouri. You can find a copy of the proposed legislation here.
What this legislation proposes is that several ‘manipulative design’ features that have been implemented in multiple video games across multiple platforms be banned within the United States, including Loot Boxes and Pay to Win mechanics. He defines both fairly simply in his legislation, with Loot Boxes being defined as ‘Microtransactions offering randomized or partially randomized rewards to players’, and Pay to Win having two definitions, the first being ‘Manipulation of a game’s progression system – typically by building artificial difficulty or other barriers into game progression – to induce players to spend money on microtransactions to advance through content supposedly available to them at no additional cost’ and the second definition being ‘Pay-to-win – Manipulation of the competitive balance between players of multiplayer games by allowing players who purchase microtransactions competitive advantages over other players’.
It also proposes that these rules should be enforced by the Federal Trade Commision (FTC) and it would give powers to State Attorneys that would allow them to file suits in defense of the residents of their states against these practices.
And that’s it, that’s the general idea behind this legislation, and already the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has issued a statement in response to this proposal stating the following:
“Numerous countries, including Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, determined that loot boxes do not constitute gambling. We look forward to sharing with the senator the tools and information the industry already provides that keeps the control of in-game spending in parents’ hands. Parents already have the ability to limit or prohibit in-game purchases with easy to use parental controls.”
So now that we’ve got the facts out of the way, let’s discuss my opinion, and I’ll start with the ESA’s response. It’s 100% spot on. What? Did you think I was going to slam the ESA? No, not at all, and the reason why I haven’t decided to slam the ESA is because I have two stances which are relevant to this particular piece of legislation.
Stance 1: I do not like politicians putting their hands on video games, as they always either go too far, or not far enough, and that ultimately inconveniences gamers.
Stance 2: Government legislation should not be used as a bludgeon in place of proper parental responsibility.
Now to give some context as to why I have those stances. As you may have seen if you’ve looked at my profile here, or my twitter, I’m from Australia. When I was really getting into gaming, there were many games which I never had access to, not because I didn’t have the money, or because my parents restricted the content I could play/watch, but because the government had not legislated an adults only rating for video games. This meant that if a game was too violent, or had sexual themes, it was blocked from being sold in my country, and there were many gamers in my country who didn’t think that was acceptable. We fought tooth and nail against our own government to get an R18+ rating for games, and we finally won and got what we wanted, but it took years for it to happen, and in that time we missed out on a lot of games, or got censored/watered down versions which denied us the whole game experience.
Ever since that fight started, I’ve been opposed to politicians getting involved in limiting access to video games, and that hasn’t changed now. Even though this does not affect my country in the slightest, my stance remains the same. Politicians have much more important things to worry about than pixels on a screen,
As for Stance 2? Well that comes down to how I was raised essentially. I was taught to take responsibility for my actions, and not to ‘pass the buck’ to someone else when it’s convenient to do so. For too long there have been a large number of parents, including celebrities, who have not been responsibile when it comes to their children and what they can do on their devices and now, rather than fix their own problems, they’re attempting to get the government to do it for them.
Here is the simple fact that the ESA gets right. Parental controls exist on every major platform where you can buy and play games. Apple’s iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Steam, uPlay, EA’s Origin, Microsoft Store, the Blizzard Launcher and even GOG Galaxy all have parental controls. Now while the parental controls vary between platforms, one thing they all have in common is that the controls you have access to allow you to limit, or outright block any purchases using that platform, and those controls can only be disabled by the person that set them up (assuming the person that set them up did a good job at doing so of course). If you enable parental controls on an iPad or iPhone, it doesn’t matter how many games your kid downloads which have microtransations in them, they won’t be able to spend a cent without your approval.
And despite the name ‘parental controls’ these can also be used by adults who have problems with gambling. All they need is a dependable friend or family member to set up the controls for them and they won’t be able to make purchases either, which will help them play the games they want, without any potential risks. If they don’t have a dependable friend or family member, then they can reach out to a support worker, someone who is helping them combat their addiction.
The point is that these tools have existed for years, and in my opinion, it’s time parents started using them, rather than ignoring them and hoping the government steps in and does their job for them.
Now that we have that out of the way, I hope any of you reading this can understand why I think the ESA is spot on. But let’s cover a major concern I have, and finally, I’ll give you my opinion on whether I think this legislation will pass or not.
First, let’s talk about the concern, and it’s simple. I feel like this legislation could be used as a stepping stone for more restrictions, or that the current legislation could be abused to make gaming more inconvenient for gamers or game developers/publishers. It’s not difficult to change the wording on a bill, and right now we simply don’t know enough about the fine print to make a judgement call about this particular piece of legislation. If it remains as it is, it can still be used as a stepping stone for harsher restrictions further down the line. As I said above, too often governments either go too far, or not far enough when it comes to legislation, and this is a perfect scenario where they could go too far and ruin gaming for a large number of people, rather than the smaller group they’re trying to target. For that reason, and the points I made above, I personally hope this legislation doesn’t pass and that it gets buried and never pops up again.
Secondly, let’s talk about whether I think this will pass or not. Leaving aside my personal thoughts that I hope it doesn’t pass. Let’s be realistic here. If you’ve been paying attention to politics at all lately, you’ll know that it is a divided mess when it comes to the government and their ability to pass legislation of any sort. Democrats block Republican bills, Republicans block Democrat bills (simply because they’re the opposition), Republicans block bills that their own party supports, and we even have cases of Republicans filibustering bills that they themselves introduced.
There’s no order, there’s no control, it’s a hole filled with swirling chaos and anarchy and as long as it remains that way, I have serious doubts that any legislation like this will pass. Especially since the current Senate, which is dominated by Republicans who care more about business interests and profits than they do about the people they’re elected to serve. All the ESA has to do is apply a bit of pressure to some of the Republicans in congress and this bill will die before it gets anywhere significant.
And as you already know, I hope it does, because I really don’t want politicians getting their hands on video games.
Now as many of you can guess by the title, this article is going to be talking about the Epic Store and their use of exclusive content, and full disclaimer/warning before we get started, if you came to my blog looking for a post where I trash the Epic Store because exclusives suck and the Epic Store sucks, you’re going to be disappointed because you won’t find that here. I am critical of the Epic Store for some things, but this isn’t going to be a hit piece.
So where are we, facts wise, in this current situation? Well let’s go over some bullet points. Here’s what we know:
The Epic Store released in December 2018, marketing itself as a direct competitor to Steam, the current industry leader for digital distribution in gaming.
The Epic Store launched in a fairly bare bones state, which did not please many gamers as there were many who expected Epic to at least get close to the same amount of features as their rival platform, Steam.
Since launch Epic has negotiated several timed exclusive deals with developers and publishers, with Metro: Exodus and the Division 2 being some of the more high profile exclusive deals on the Epic Store.
Many of those exclusive deals have garnered backlash from gamers and while most of the complaints are about exclusivity in general, there are others which are more significant which touch on false advertising.
So now that we’ve covered some basic facts, let’s go over what happened today in the world of gaming. Today it was announced at the GDC that Epic has partnered with 2Ks Private Division label, which will bring The Outer Worlds, Obsidian’s highly anticipated FPS RPG, and Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, which debuted at the Game Awards last year, to the Epic Store as timed exclusives (although at least with the Outer Worlds, it will also be available for purchase on the Microsoft Store). Following the news of those two games becoming timed exclusives it was also revealed that Control, a 3rd person shooter developed by Max Payne developer Remedy, and three games developed by Quantic Dreams; Detroit: Become Human, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls would also be launching on the Epic Store.
And there were plenty of other games that were announced to be exclusives after that.
At this point I think it’s clear to all but the most diehard unbelievers, that the Epic Store is here to stay. They’re throwing down the gauntlet and securing very lucrative deals which will bring millions of gamers to their platform. This is good news for consumers, because even if you despise the Epic Store and love Steam, the fact that Valve can no longer rest on their laurels as money rolls in means they will have to step up their game and work to keep developers on their platform, and they have a lot of work to do. As reported by Polygon, a survey performed by the organizers of the GDC claimed that out of almost 4000 developers interviewed only 6% were satisfied with the 30% slice that Valve takes from all sales made on their platform, which means that to many developers, the 88/12 split that Epic offers is extremely tantalizing.
So what does this mean for gamers moving forward? Have we seen the peak of Epic Games exclusives? Or is this only the beginning. Well depending on which side of the fence you’re sitting on when it comes to the war between Epic Games and Valve, I either have some great news, or some really bad news, and that news is quite simple, that Epic Games exclusives aren’t going anywhere. While I was thinking about writing this piece, I reached out to Epic Games and its founder, Tim Sweeney, and despite his incredibly busy GDC schedule, he still managed to answer one particular question for me on Twitter in regards to exclusives:
I ask because I'm curious to know if there are a lot of developers eager to take up your stores offer with better communication and the lucrative 88/12 revenue share.
I can’t share a number, but the number of discussions is significantly larger than the number announced exclusives. These developers are small businesses with ongoing costs, and welcome relationships that enable their games to earn more or be guaranteed some of the revenue.
So it’s clear that behind the scenes there are far more discussions about potential exclusivity deals than there are announced deals, and that’s great news for Epic and many of these developers, especially the ones that are operating on much smaller budgets. But will that please gamers? Maybe, maybe not, there are certainly vocal groups in the community that are opposed to exclusives, but despite their anger, they don’t appear to be having as much of an impact as they’d like.
Personally I’m looking forward to seeing what else comes out of Epic following the GDC, especially in the light of former playstation exclusive games being announced to not only be coming to PC, but coming to the Epic Games Store. Could this mean that other former console exclusive games will also come to PC? Could we see God of War or the Uncharted series make a PC debut? We can only wait and see.
Warning: The following article talks about extremely sensitive and taboo subject matter which may distress some readers. If you are one of many folks that are (rightly so) distressed by reading articles that discuss sexual assault, I apologize in advance. I do not mean to offend or mentally harm any of you, but I had to get my thoughts on paper.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to write this piece.
I thought long and hard about whether I should even touch this subject on my blog. I was leaning heavily toward the ‘no’ camp and just letting the matter die down and rest, but after what I’ve seen today, I just couldn’t do that anymore. I had to write something and get my thoughts out there.
So what is this topic that has got me so bothered? Well it’s quite simple really at least for anyone who’s been following gaming news over the past few days and it has to do with a game that was recently pulled from Steam after public backlash. That game being ‘Rape Day’. It is as disgusting as the name implies because it is a game/graphic novel which glorifies and promotes rape among other things. Created by self-publisher/game developer ‘Desk Plant’ (which has ruined the ability for me to have plants anywhere near my desk now because now I’m going to associate the term ‘Desk Plant’ with this developer, rather than what the object actually is) it was published on Steam due to Valve’s extremely lax rules on what can and cannot be published on their platform and within this title if you’re one of the few sick enough to buy this thing, you can go through over 500 images and 7000 lines of dialogue as you rape, abuse and murder women during a zombie apocalypse.
And if that wasn’t disgusting enough, the game also features scenes depicting necrophilia and incest. It also contained scenes depicting infantcide (the murder of children basically) but those scenes were pulled by the developer so that it wouldn’t fall afoul of Valve’s child exploitation policy.
If you’re feeling sick to the stomach after reading that. Trust me, you’re not the only one. I feel sick about writing it.
So the game was on Steam, backlash occurred and now it’s not on Steam. So victory for common sense and decency right? I wish I could say it was, but sadly no, it’s not. While the game has indeed been pulled, we are now seeing all sorts of individuals pop out of the woodwork and it has been a toxic mess all over the internet. Just today I’ve observed the following:
A video on YouTube by a man (who I will not name) where said individual defends the game’s place on Steam and effectively denounces people who were outraged that such a game existed, claiming some nonsense about his ‘ethics’ which demanded he defend the game’s place on Steam (shame his ‘ethics’ didn’t actually go far enough for him to denounce a game glorifying rape, but hey, some people just have horrible standards I guess.)
Multiple comments on videos and articles which are outraged that the game got pulled, citing ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of expression’.
I could go on listing more and more cases about this, and I am sure that we’ll see more about this in the days to come, especially since the game itself isn’t going anywhere with the developer determined to make a sale off of his horrific creation, although he’s going to be selling it on his own website in the future, because thankfully no other digital distributor will touch his ‘game’ with a 50ft pole.
Now if it wasn’t obvious by the tone of my post so far, I’ll make it clear for any of my viewers reading this. I do not support this game. I am glad that Steam pulled it from the platform, and if I could, I would remove all traces of this game from existence, because games that glorify and promote rape should not exist.
But I know there are people out there. People who defend the game as an ‘expression of free speech’ or whatnot. To those people I want to make something perfectly clear if any of those folks stumble across this post. Freedom of Speech/Freedom of Expression does not give you freedom from consequence. This developer/publisher had the freedom to create and share his abomination with the world. But the consequence for creating said abomination and sharing it is that people with a working moral compass are able to protest the existence of the abomination loudly enough that those with the power to do so act in the best interest of the public. Keep that in mind and for the love of all that is holy, if you’re going to chose to die on a hill, don’t let it be on a hill about a game that glorifies rape.
Hopefully this all dies down in the next few days and we can get back to some form of normalcy.
Howdy folks, Kelvoran here again, this time with a news piece and my take on it rather than a review. And today I want to talk about Dead or Alive, specifically the recently released 6th game that isn’t a spin-off title.
Now I’ll admit, I’ve never really been a fan of the Dead or Alive series. Sure they’re fun to play, but when it came to fighting games I was always a bigger fan of Tekken or Mortal Kombat, but I have tinkered with the Dead or Alive series from time to time and when I have played the games they’re fun. Now, I can’t really comment about this particular game, because I haven’t played it yet, and in truth that’s not what this article is about as you can tell by the title. This is about the Season Pass for the title and the outrageous price of $93 that it’s selling for.
Now for those of you who recently started following me, you may not be aware that I recently came to this platform from Tumblr during the exodus of that platform by content creators over their rule changes (I chose to do so on principle). While I was on Tumblr I wrote up an article about microtransactions/DLC and the MMO, RIFT which was titled “MMOs & DLC” you’ll find a link to that article here. I encourage you all to read that, but the TL:DR version of that post is that when it comes to microtransactions and DLC I am generally supportive, provided that said microtransactions and DLC adhere to specific rules (which in the article I attributed to what makes a good F2P MMO). These rules are:
If the game is a multi-player title, microtransactions must not offer player power. Meaning the game must not be pay to win.
If the game is an MMO or has shared multi-player content, that content must not be restricted by recurring microtransactions.
Regardless of game type or modes, all microtransactions and DLC must have a reasonable price for what you’re buying.
Now if a game has microtransactions and DLC that fits into these categories that’s fantastic and I will openly encourage people to buy them because that is how you get publishers to release more content that you like, by showing them that their money isn’t wasted. However, if they’re not fitting into that category, then I’ll warn them away with a pitchfork and flaming torches.
I think by the title you can all assume where I stand on this particular Season Pass.
Regardless of what is added to the season pass, being asked to shell out $93 for it is outrageous. That is more than the cost of the game itself in most countries. Even in Australia, where I am, Dead or Alive 6 costs less unless you get the collectors steelbook edition which is only $6 more. And what do you get for this $93 investment? Well according to an article written by Altchar yesterday which you can find here. Not a whole lot! Let’s go through the list.
2 new characters from the King of Fighters 14 and SNK universes.
52 costumes for characters included in the base game.
10 costumes for characters included in the Season Pass.
That’s it.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, this is titled ‘Season Pass 1’ which implies that there will be more season passes as time goes on and if you purchase Season Pass 1, you are told that you may not be eligible for all the DLC that releases during the Season Pass 1 cycle.
The entire point of a ‘season pass’ is that you purchase it in advance and you get ‘all’ the DLC for that game when it releases instead of paying for each piece of additional content piecemeal. The fact that this season pass doesn’t even include all the DLC that will release in the cycle of this Season Pass only makes this situation worse and given the price and content that you’re getting, it’s already a bad situation.
So what can we do in this case? Well, truth be told, not much. We can’t force Team-Ninja and Koei Tecmo to change the price on the Season Pass, but here is what I encourage anyone viewing this to do. Do not purchase this Season Pass or any other Season Pass for this title released in the future if it releases at a similar price point. Make sure that the message you send is clear. You will not purchase overpriced Season Passes. Hopefully, if enough people refuse to buy it, future Season Passes for this title will be more reasonably priced.
It’s just a shame that developers and publishers think they can charge this much for a content pass.
Howdy folks, Kelvoran here with another review. This time for Anthem, the newest title released by Bioware and their attempt to make a game that rivals Destiny and Destiny 2. Having invested several hours into this game already I am finally prepared to put my thoughts on paper (so to speak) and give people my first impressions along with an initial review score. There will be a part 2 to this review, and that will come when I finally reach the end game and experience that, which is something I’m not exactly rushing toward, so don’t expect the second part anytime soon. It will be posted here when it’s ready.
So let’s begin. What is Anthem? Well as I said in the opening paragraph it’s Bioware’s attempt to create a game like Destiny and Destiny 2, a 3rd person shooter which mixes open world and RPG elements to create a fairly unique experience as there are only a few games which fill this niche market. In Anthem, you play as a Freelancer, a soldier of fortune type character who operates out of Fort Tarsis. As a freelancer, your job, and how you play the game, consists of taking contracts that take you beyond the walls protecting the Fort and into the wilds while piloting your Javelin, an advanced exo-suit with powerful abilities. While you’re out in the world beyond the walls, you’ll encounter dangerous enemies, from the wildlife to the Scars, an alien race that controls vast areas of the world, and finally the forces of the Dominion, a militaristic faction of humans with their own agenda, none of which is good for you or the people of Fort Tarsis.
The moment you start playing the game you are thrown right into the action as your team attempts to reign in a powerful cataclysm known as the Heart of Rage. This is essentially the tutorial where the game teaches you the basics of how to control your Javelin, which for the tutorial is the Ranger-Class, how to engage in combat and how to use your abilities. Without giving away any story spoilers, eventually you will find your way to Fort Tarsis, and you’ll be able to pick the Javelin you want to use at the beginning. This is essentially like class selection in other RPG games, but don’t worry, as you level up the piloting skill (which is done by gaining experience) you’ll unlock additional Javelins, allowing you to pilot whichever Javelin you want, which will come in handy when you jump into groups with other Freelancers.
There are a total of 4 different classes of Javelins in Anthem at launch with each offering their own unique playstyle and appearance customization. You start the tutorial with the Ranger-Class (technically it’s just called the Ranger, but I add on -Class to the end, makes it sound cooler) which is a jack of all trades style Javelin, capable of performing well in any situation the game throws at you making it a decent first choice, but, if you want something more specialized, the game has other options including:
The Colossus-Class: A much beefier Javelin than the Ranger-Class, the Colossus is a walking tank. Using heavy armour and able to take more damage than any other Javelin, it comes equipped with heavy weapons and a thick shield, allowing it to not only take damage but also dish it out at both long and short range.
The Storm-Class: The Storm is a Javelin for those who prefer to remain at long range, and utilizes elemental attacks to destroy their enemies from afar. Out of all the Javelins, it has less armour than both the Colossus-Class and Ranger-Class, but it makes up for that with the ability to remain in the air far longer than any other Javelin.
The Interceptor-Class: The Interceptor is the most agile of all the Javelins, capable of leaping around the world thanks to the triple-jump ability. While it is one of the weakest Javelins in terms of armour, having even less than the Storm-Class Javelin, it makes up for that by having energy shielding which recharges the faster you move around the world.
Now once you’ve chosen which Javelin you want to pilot, from there you’ll be required to do a few missions around the Fort which will introduce you to story characters and unlock features of the game. If you’ve played any MMO or open world game in the recent years you’ll know how these missions play out. Find X amount of items or go to Y location and kill or defend the area from Z number of enemies. Fairly basic, not very innovative, but still entertaining, especially if you’re playing in a team, although playing solo is fine too, although you might find the missions a bit more challenging as a result as all the enemies will be focused on you, making your life just that little bit more difficult.
Once you’ve completed a few missions and been introduced to the major forces that populate the world outside of Fort Tarsis, including the Scars and the Dominion, you’ll unlock the Launch Bay, which is a social-hub area where you can see other players in their Javelins, while being able to access all the features of Fort Tarsis which include the Forge, where you can customize your Javelin, the featured shop where you can buy items with currency earned in game, or purchased through RMT, contract tables and daily, weekly and monthly challenges.
Now admittedly, unlocking the Launch Bay is as far as I got. I spent quite a bit of time roaming the wilds in my Colossus, taking in the scenery and exploring some of the landmarks that the game has rather than rush through the story or push for the end-game content as fast as possible. The game might very well change as I get further in, it’s something I’ll have to see for myself, but when I do, any revelations I have will be written up in my second review.
So where does the game stand, score-wise, right now? Well let’s get started:
Graphics: The graphics for Anthem are absolutely mind-blowing. Even on low-end rigs, which is what I am currently using with medium settings the game looks fantastic. Fort Tarsis has a very unique theme, and even the launch-bay is aesthetically pleasing, but the big graphics treat is when you emerge from the fort and begin to explore the outside world. Depending on your Javelin you may end up spending more time on the ground than in the air, but regardless of what vantage point you’re looking at the scenery from, it’s absolutely breathtaking at times. 10/10
Audio: From what I’ve experienced so far the audio design is solid. The music when you’re roaming the world and in combat is engaging and the ambient sounds really help immerse you in the game. Sadly my experience with the audio was tainted somewhat by having a dodgy headset which was causing various audio issues which couldn’t be fixed until I replaced the entire headset. For my first impression, I have to give the audio a 7/10. Hopefully, I can increase that much higher to an 8 or a 9 by the time my second review comes along now that I’ve fixed the audio issues I was having.
Gameplay: For games like these, this is what makes or breaks the title. As one of my favourite YouTube personalities said in his Guild Wars 2 review that the most important thing about an MMO is not the story, it’s not the voice-overs, it’s not the graphics or the cinematics, it’s the gameplay because it’s what you’re going to be doing for hours and hours and hours on end. Now admittedly, Anthem is not an MMO, in fact, the only time you will run into players outside of your team is in the Launch Bay, but as this game is one that is intended to keep players engaged for long periods of time, gameplay is extremely important. Now as far as my first impressions go, gameplay is solid. Combat is fun and engaging, flying is a treat and I feel in many ways that I am Iron Man (or in my case, since I play a Colossus, Hulkbuster).
As far as quests go, Anthem does not really innovate in regards to quest design and follows the standard MMO structure when it comes to objectives and how missions play out, but this is not really a bad thing. Familiar is good, especially in a game which throws quite a bit at the player from the beginning with how you move throughout the world and how combat plays out with all the abilities you have to master. I feel like they could have innovated heavily, but in doing so, they may have caused some players to abandon the game because it would have been too much to take in right at the start. If there’s one thing I will be critical of in the gameplay it is the loading screens. Not because they are lengthy (the longest loading screen for me was 12 seconds), but simply because of how many there are. Now some of them are understandable, such as moving between the Launch Bay and Fort Tarsis, and moving from either of the previous locations out into the world, but the Forge, in my opinion, does not need a loading screen. It should simply be a menu that can be loaded on demand.
Overall I’ll give gameplay for my first impression an 8/10. It would have been a 9, but I had to knock it down due to the number of loading screens.
Performance: For such a graphically intensive game, I expected it to run horribly on my low-end PC. In fact, I expected it to cause my machine to overheat, but it didn’t, and instead, it ran incredibly well! So I’m very impressed with the performance for my first impression. I’m easily giving this a 10/10 for now.
Story: I don’t really feel like I can comment on the story too much at this stage because I’ve only done a few missions, but from what I did play I like what I’ve seen. Owen as a character is amazing and I honestly want to give him a hug and polish his bald head with a cloth. Your main character is a bit of a smart-ass, which I like, and I’ll admit I laughed a few times when he was engaging some of the Dominion lieutenants during one of the story missions I played through. Until I play more of the story, I don’t feel comfortable giving this a rating. So N/A for the story at this time.
So in summary:
Graphics: 10/10
Audio: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Performance: 10/10
Story: N/A
So there you have it folks, my first impression of Anthem. When I have finally reached the end-game and experienced the whole story and the rest of the gameplay, I’ll write up part 2 and we’ll see if the rating is higher or lower.
Spoiler Warning: There will be some game details discussed below that may spoil some aspects of the game for readers who haven’t played the game yet.
Bloody, visceral, horrific and at times absolutely terrifying.
That’s the Resident Evil series in a nutshell, but it also perfectly describes the remake for Resident Evil 2 that was released this year by Capcom. Now I’ll be the first to admit, horror games don’t usually do it for me, but I am happy to say that the Resident Evil games are the exception. I remember playing the original Resident Evil back in 1996 and since then I’ve played a number of the other games in the series (but not all of them) including RE 2 (1998), RE 3: Nemesis, RE – Code Veronica, RE Outbreak, RE 4, RE 5, RE: Revelations, RE: Operation Raccoon City, RE 6, RE Revelations 2, RE 7, and finally Resident Evil 2 (2019).
So while I’ve missed out on a few titles over the years, I’d like to say that I own and have played a number games in the series. Not an expert, but knowledgable. Also because it is a remake, I came into this game with ‘some’ familiarity. I knew from previous games what types of enemies I’d be facing and more importantly what enemies I wouldn’t be facing. I also knew that there would be multiple stories to play through, with each one having a different experience even though we’d be running through the same areas.
Now for those who haven’t picked this up from the footage that’s been available online for a while now. Resident Evil 2 follows the formula of many of the later Resident Evil games, specifically 4, 5 and 6. The camera is fixed in an almost over the shoulder 3rd person perspective and it is much more action-oriented than the original released in 1998 but in truth, this is not a bad thing as this action-oriented gameplay allows for better aiming and a much better view on the rather visceral enemies that the game unleashes at you. The horror aspect is also not dulled at all due to the fact that many of the corridors and rooms that you’ll adventure through are dark and require the use of a torch, which only increases the atmosphere and makes it necessary to peek around corners to ensure there’s nothing waiting in ambush, rather than risking rushing only to get caught unawares and potentially murdered.
Now for those of you who played the original release, you’ll be happy to know that aside from the action-oriented gameplay, the actual game plays in a familiar fashion to how it did in the original release. Puzzles are back (having been absent from Resident Evil 5 and 6) and there are more of them than there were in the original game, and as with the original game, you’ll need to pick up various items as you explore the various regions of the game in order to open doors and continue moving through the game such as the Spade Key, Chain Cutters or the Red Valve. There are also new items which can give you some utility help such as boards, which appear mostly around the police station and can be used to barricade certain windows on the ground floor. These windows once barricaded can’t be used as entry points by zombies, and in some cases, if you’re fast enough, you can prevent zombies from even entering the building by barricading certain windows before the zombies break them and get inside.
That being said, if you played the original release and expect that you’ll be able to play through the game flawlessly because you know where all the bad guys are and you know all the puzzle solutions already. I have some bad news for you. The remake changes quite a bit when it comes to how the game plays, which route you take and when you run into certain enemies. For example, in the original game, you ran into the Licker rather early, in one of the first corridors in-fact. This changes in the remake as that same corridor has no licker during the first playthrough, but instead just has zombies. Your first Licker encounter in the remake doesn’t happen until you’ve explored quite a bit of the Police Station, requiring you to find a few items so you can get access to the corridor leading to the S.T.A.R.S office.
Overall the gameplay for the remake is solid. Familiar enough to draw in fans of the original release, while having enough differences to make it feel like you’re playing a completely different game. The gore and horror are turned up to 11 with the game being very visceral at times. Even on my sub-standard ancient rig, I was able to fully embrace the game, and while some textures were low-resolution none of it really took me out of the game or broke my immersion. Audio quality for the environments, music soundtrack, voice acting and enemies are quite well done, especially during high-tension scenes such as the encounters with some of the bosses of the game. No loading screens behind every door are absolutely amazing, as not only does this make traversing the levels much faster, but it also allows for more tactical gameplay, where you can peek through slightly open doors to check for enemies, or in more tense situations, it allows zombies to burst through doors to try to get to you. It also makes the encounters with the Tyrant, Mr. X, much more frightening, as he will be able to follow you relentlessly, smashing open doors to get to you. Running, slamming doors or firing your weapons at any enemy will actually draw him to your location if he’s looking for you, meaning that you have to pick your battles and get out of the room as fast as possible if you want to survive as Mr. X can’t be killed during the periods where he’s chasing you, only temporarily disabled.
For all the good the game does though, there are a few issues here and there which I do have to mention, and while none of these issues are game-breakingly bad, they still can impact players at certain points if you’re not prepared for them.
Audio Repetitiveness: This is an issue with the voice acting for the game, and its present regardless of which of the main characters you choose to play as. When you’re firing your weapons at certain enemies, or when zombies bash on doors trying to get to you, your character will be surprised and say things like “What the hell?” or “C’mon, really?” and while this works at the beginning of the game (especially since your character has never encountered a zombie before) it gets more and more annoying the further you progress, as your character still seems surprised by the fact that the zombies keep getting up after you shoot them, despite having killed enough zombies at this point to know that they will get back up, or your character will be surprised when the door gets hit by a zombie, despite the fact that you ran past the zombie to get through the door, and your character knows that doors don’t stop them.
Playing as Ada Wong: While this isn’t really an ‘issue’ with the game, I do feel like this is one of the weaker portions of the title. When you play as Ada during Leon’s story, you are required to move through a small portion of the level using your hacking tool to open up paths to progress. While this isn’t bad in itself (and is actually really unique) Ada starts off with only 9 bullets in her gun and no ammo, which makes your encounters with the zombies in this level very annoying. You also have no health items or secondary weapons, which means if enemies do get their hands on you, they can kill you very quickly. Personally, I feel that, given Ada’s chosen career and the fact that she’s stuck in a zombie apocalypse, she should at the very least be carrying one box of ammo, a secondary weapon or two, and some first aid items.
The Second Story: This sadly is one of the biggest issues I have with the game. Now, to clue some of you into how the game works. When you play through the First Story, regardless of which character you pick, you start the game by moving to the Police station and entering through the front door. You then proceed to move around the station, completing puzzles, using items and opening doors until you can progress to the next area and some of these items that you use are very much ‘one use only’ type items.
Now when you play through the Second Story, you take over the role of the other character (Leon if you played the First Story as Claire, and Claire if you played the First Story as Leon) and since the game is supposed to reflect that your character is entering the Police Station later, you’d expect to see that reflected in what doors are open, what puzzles have been solved and what enemies are alive or dead. Sadly this isn’t the case at all, and you’ll instead find that certain barriers are still in place, although the items to open them have moved, and the puzzles have been reset. Now you could write this off as interference from a third party (Chief Brian Irons for example) but there are some points which absolutely shatter the immersion for the second story.
For example, as you progress through the First Story to collect the three seals for the statue puzzle you come across one of the statues in a sealed off area of the upper levels. In order to get into this sealed off area, you need to find an electronic device, combine it with a battery to form a detonator, then place the detonator on the brick of C4 that is attached to the barricade that has sealed off the area with the statue. C4 detonates, you step inside to use the statue and get the seal and then you can finish the puzzle (as that seal is one of the last you’ll need). And yet, when you play through this same area in the Second Story, the barricade and the C4 brick are still there, requiring you to get the detonator etc before you can get to the seal.
Rather than feeling like your character’s actions from the First Story impact the Second Story it feels like nothing from the First Story mattered. You still fight bosses in the same place (despite the fact that the First Story character had already defeated them in the exact same spot), and some enemies that died in the First Story reappear in the Second Story (such as Marvin Branagh and Mr. X) and it just really breaks the immersion.
Second Story Ammo: Another second story issue, but this one is relatively minor. When you play through the Second Story as Leon (I have not played through as Claire at time of writing, so I can’t say for sure if this issue impacts her playthrough) every single box of pistol ammo you find is for the M19, a gun you find very early in the game, and one that has more firepower than Matilda, but you cannot craft M19 ammo or get upgrades for the M19, meaning that if you do want to get any use out of Matilda or the upgrades for Matilda, you have to use your gunpowder stockpiles to craft standard pistol ammo.
4th Survivor Mode: Another minor issue and one that I wasn’t too thrilled about. Now admittedly, I never played the HUNK mode in the original Resident Evil 2 back in 1998, but when I heard that HUNK was going to be a playable character in the remake I thought that perhaps we’d see a unique story campaign where you play as HUNK as he attempts to extract while killing anyone that gets in his way and cleaning up evidence, such as any survivors that may know of Umbrella’s involvement in the Raccoon City incident (similar to how Operation Raccoon City played out) sadly what we got instead was a timed rush mode, which I’ll admit I am just not a fan of.
And that’s it, those are all my gripes with the game as it currently stands. So, with that out of the way, how would I rate the game based on my review score system?
Graphics: The graphics for Resident Evil 2 are absolutely amazing even on low-end systems. The amount of options that exist in the graphics menu to enhance the visual quality of the game for those who have more powerful rigs ensures that this game will look absolutely amazing for years to come. Rating: 10/10
Audio: The audio for Resident Evil 2 is top notch. A lot of care has gone into the creation of the soundtrack from the sounds of basic enemies, to the voice acting, and especially to the music soundtrack which plays very intense music during chase scenes. Rating: 10/10.
Gameplay: The gameplay for Resident Evil 2 is tight with combat being vastly improved over the original release. The lack of loading screens and the vast array of changes to the game make this remake feel like a completely new game at times, although I feel like the Second Playthrough was a bit of a letdown. So I’ll give gameplay two ratings this time around. Rating (1st Playthrough): 10/10. Rating (2nd Playthrough): 6/10.
Performance: Even when running on an extremely outdated rig that overheats when it gets pushed too far (especially during Australian summers) the performance for Resident Evil 2 is extremely solid. A few frame drops here and there were expected, but given the graphical quality of the game, I expected more issues than what I got. Rating: 10/10
Story: As the game is a remake, much of the story is very familiar to those who played the original back in 1998, but as with the gameplay, there are many changes which have fleshed out characters that were not as well covered in the original, and you can certainly feel for some of the characters like Annette Birkin during Claire’s story or Marvin Branagh. As with many of the other ratings in this review, I have to give the story a 10/10.
So there you have it folks, my review for the Resident Evil 2 remake. Expect another piece on this title after February 15th when the Ghost Survivors mode is released, as I plan on covering each of the stories presented in that mode as well.
Well folks, another day another post by Kelvoran and I’ll admit it’s been a while. I took some time for the holiday period, just wanted to relax and play some games without needing to worry about the news of the day and making a blog post, and in doing so I’ve missed posting my opinion about a few things, but that being said I don’t have any regrets and this post will be my first jump back in with a fresh start to 2019.
So what’s happened? Well, as you can tell from the title of the blog post, news broke today that Activision and Bungie, the developer of the Destiny franchise have called it quits after 8 years of a 10-year contract. Why this happened is as of yet unclear, but given that Bungie was contracted to produce 2 more Destiny games, and given that Activision themselves are refocusing on their owned IPs, I would imagine that it was a mutual agreement between the two that they would cut ties, allowing Bungie to focus on developing its own IP while Activision shifted their attention and finances to IPs they own. But truth be told we don’t know the exact reasons and it may very well be that we will never know.
So what does this mean for Bungie? Well, apparently they are considering this to be positive news. There’s no denying that the relationship between Bungie and Activision was strained, so to the staff at the studio, this must be great news. And for gamers that immediately got worried that because of the split the future of Destiny 2 on the Blizzard Entertainment Battle.Net client might be in jeopardy, Blizzard Entertainment and Activision have ensured gamers that there will be no disruptions in service on their end. Unfortunately, this is not the greatest news for gamers, for two main reasons.
Activision has essentially been replaced by Netease as the primary funder for the studio to the tune of $100 million dollars which will no doubt come with expectations from the Chinese gaming company. Netease for those that don’t know is a company with a rather sketchy product line filled with mobile games which copy many features from each other and are monetized heavily, often to the detriment of gamers. They don’t really get much of a mention when it comes to games media, but they recently leapt into the spotlight for the wrong reasons at Blizzcon 2018 when it was revealed that they were partnering with Blizzard Entertainment to create Diablo Immortal, which was harshly panned by fans and critics alike, especially since, as with other Netease titles, it appears as if many elements from the game are ripped from other Netease titles.
Many of the negative decisions that gamers hated in Destiny 2 are a direct result of Bungie and their design decisions, rather than publisher intervention and coercion. The Eververse store, one of the most panned features of both games was a Bungie creation and the decision to nickel and dime players by putting so much content on the store was also Bungie’s decision. They even hired a staff member for the role of ‘Senior Progression Designer’ whose job focused on ‘creating sustainable player progression and chase through Destiny 2’s Bright Engram system.’ Which means for those gamers who are expecting a bright light to shine from Destiny 2 now that they are out from under the oppressive heel of Activision may be in for a rude awakening and they will no longer have Activision to use as the boogedy man.
It remains to be seen if Destiny 2 will change or if it will produce more of the same now that it is free from Activision. My guess is more of the same, because for as long as I’ve studied the games industry (having wanted to be part of it myself) one thing I have learned is that the publishers rarely intervene in the development of a product unless they have fallen behind to an extreme degree and there is a lot of disorganization at the studio, otherwise they steer clear and let the developers do their jobs. Now, these moments, as I said, are extremely rare and they are essentially non-existent unless the company is owned either partially or wholly by the publisher in question. For Bungie, being an independent developer, there is no chance that Activision stepped in and tried to control the production of the title. They may have offered suggestions, but that would have been the extent of their influence.
But as I said, it remains to be seen what will happen. One can hope that Destiny 2 will become a beacon of what the AAA industry can produce if developers are left to their own devices, but I have my doubts that it will polish itself to that extent and become what many people hope it could be.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this one regardless, and of course I’ll keep you all updated as more news about todays event becomes available.
Hello folks, Kelvoran here and today I want to write a brief post concerning scores in video game reviews and how I rate video games. Now there’s always a lot of discussion when it comes to scores on video games. Which system is better? What does each score mean? Is it subjective or is there an industry standard which everyone must abide by?
Personally I think that while there is an ‘industry standard’ where a score of 5/10 is an abject failure. I do not agree with that. Nor do I agree with giving a single score to a game, as I feel like this doesn’t really do each game justice. Giving a game an 8/10 means I think it’s great, but why is it great? You’d have to read my entire review to find out, and some people? Well then just don’t have time for that. So instead I personally give a game a score for several categories. Those categories being:
Graphics
Audio
Gameplay
Performance
Story
That way, if you’re interested in a game that I’ve reviewed and you’re looking for something with a rich narrative, you can look at the games I’ve reviewed and found a game with a high story score. It may not have the best graphics or the best gameplay, but if all you’re interested in is a story, then it might be worth grabbing.
But what do the numbers mean when it comes to Kelvoran Gaming? Well let me go over the scores:
0 – Irredeemable Trash.
1 to 3 – Considerably Flawed.
4 – Below Average.
5 – Average.
6 – Above average.
7 to 8 – Great.
9 – Fantastic.
10 – Perfect.
KelvoranGaming
So there you have it folks, where I stand in regards to numbers on my reviews. Hope that answers any questions you might have.
Fortress of Solitude 
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