Update: Graduation & Xbox One

I'm not that interesting of a guy, so I won’t bore you with the reason of my break, part II, except busy-busy life. I did however come back at a time perfect for a Soapbox moment, and that is one you shall receive today.

Oh, how you have forsaken me.

For those of you who have read my content before, I used to be a major Xbox user. I really got into PC gaming as my love for TF2 grew, and now I’m almost exclusively on there (minus the fact the laptop I’m using hasn’t been fixed successfully in 3 attempts by Acer, which I will talk about in my
next entry) but I still love my 360. I bought it for Halo 3, but ended up with a love for gaming that is hugely with me, even if I have changed systems. So, when I heard that Xbox’s big reveal was coming up, I got excited.
I shouldn’t have been.
From what we know right now, the new Xbox ONE will need to be connected to the internet, at some point of time, once a day. To use any pre-owned or used game, Microsoft will hit users with a fee, which could be as much as the original copy, ruining the point of borrowing from friends, or GameStop’s sly money-making machine. I could nearly forgive Microsoft for all of this, but somewhere along the way of the El Grande reveal, there wasn’t a true mentioning of games—but there was a big focus on Kinect, the NFL, and a NEW Halo TV show!
This can’t be happening.
Microsoft, if I remember correctly, the Xbox originated as a gaming console. I can understand and can almost empathize with the online and fee requirements you’ve put on this system, which completely isolates your main community of people who love to play video games.
Microsoft, you’ve turned your focus to being an “All-In-One” system. A system meant to be cute, but not to game. I am a gamer, I don’t care about Kinect, or TV when I play video games.
Why would I buy a console that gets away from this?
Microsoft, as a fan for quite near 5 years now, I hate to turn my back on this relationship that I’ve bought into. I just can’t accept this glorified DVR as a gaming system though. I don’t care what specs. You put into it, this device isn’t gaming AND other features, its other features AND gaming. You’ve moved your focus from your hardcore-gaming community, all within the goal of appealing to a more neutral audience, in which I think you may succeed. You have however isolated a huge fan base which has been loyal since the release of Halo on your new console back in 2001, and you give us this.
We aren’t being hard on you. You have betrayed us.
I won’t buy an Xbox One unless I see something that truly changes the way games are played today, but I don’t really see that happening. Your reveal was glorified by Steven Spielberg and Kinect, which was already a failure in the eyes of nearly all old-school gamers. This new culture is a new embrace, a new direction. I get that, but I will have no part in it. Godspeed in your new gaming universe Microsoft, I think you may see an overall change in your constituents, not just me.

--Santa

First Thoughts & Computer Woes

Today I come to you all from not a computer, I come from an Xbox. Through a series of unfortunate events, the laptop has stopped working, and my attempts of re-installing the OS at this point of time have proven fruitless. However, I then realized that I have a chatpad and (regretfully) Internet Explorer on the Xbox. I put 2 and 2 together, and begun the post. It won' be quite as pretty as my old, MS Word typed ones, but it will get some content out, with minor spelling errors.

Since we're already on the Xbox, why not talk about their games while I'm at it? Namely, Halo 4. I won' lie, I was originally agaimst a sequel. I wamted it to die with the Covenant, but quickly I saw that they weren't just milking the old cash cow, but had brought some new ideas in as well.

I haven't completed the campaign just yet, but I have played through a good chunk of ot, and gotten a bit into War Games as well. Its apparent to me that what is happening now is not just a revival, but a shift towards a new direction. Normally, I'm heavily against milking a story, but Halo has something more to it. Halo's got a whole, vast, lore and universe surrounding it. Master Chieft is just a man, but he is a soldier. Soldiers just don't fight one fght. Sierra 117 is a lifer, and his end is not in sight.

So far, Halo 4 is dragging in the feeling of Halo, the quintessential needs of it (that big battle feel and boop, boop, beep before a game starts) and puts it in a new situation. The plot is heavy and thick. Its, at this point at least, possibly more Halo than some of its predocessors.

I look forward to cpleting the game, and giving a more full review, and hopefully, on an actual computer.

--Santa

Fight With Your Friends, or With NPCs?

So, a while back my brother and I were debating on one of our favorite subjects: Video Games. One of your favorite topics just so happens to be whether or not plot is more important, or multiplayer. I myself usually play multiplayer based games, while he prefers singleplayer based ones with intense storylines. Now, don't get me wrong, I've logged thousands of hours on Oblivion, Fallout 3, Bioshock, etc...  But my favorite games are still Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, Halo: Reach, etc.. And this confuses him. I personally think it's because he can't play multiplayer very well whilst I think I can do fairly well. But, let’s compare the two, as I think that the two can take a cue from each other.

Starting off for the Questline side, we have the ever great Oblivion, I would use Skyrim, but, I still have 1 month to wait. Its October 11th. I can just feel Bethesda taunting me with 31 days. Oblivion, also known as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, is the wondrous work of Bethesda software. You start out making your own character (which can take you a few hours, depending on how you want your character to look. The options for customization are amazing.) You may then choose how you want to go the vast open world. do you want to be a rogue, an archer, a magician? Its like D & D when your friends are being dicks and won’t play with you, so you go and play Oblivion instead. I have legitimately put around 800 hours into Oblivion, and saved over 850 times.

Next, as pictured below, is Reach. The original part to the original trilogy, it shows the events before Halo: Combat Evolved. Naturally, when I first saw this at E3 a few years ago, I just about lost it. As any fan-boy

Can tell you, seeing Reach re-visited was just about a dream come true. Now, Reach does have a plot line, and it is pretty good for the most part, I won't spoil the ending for all of you who may not own the game, but I had tears in my eyes, maybe it was from the 8 hours I has spent playing the campaign straight through on Heroic. Maybe it was the Flaming hot Cheetos that I had mistaken for normal Cheetos that I had started eating right before the last mission. But, Halo is renowned for its classical Matchmaking game. It’s everything I could, except there are no hats, a cue that all game developers could take from Valve, but it did the next best thing. Complete customization over your Spartan, the one to the left is my very own. I will admit that I have fallen out of playing Reach over the past few months, but I still log onto my Xbox every now and then, and make sure I put a couple of games in. You never know when it may come in handy to remember how to use Bumper Jumper. So, what IS more important? In all honesty, I think it was to be one or the other, and I have a good example on how to prove it: Bioshock 2.

Now, Bioshock 2 was a good game, but that's the point: it was just a good game. And I think it had to do with them putting time into multiplayer instead of just focusing on the singleplayer experience. But, if you bought Minerva's Den, you found a quest-line rivaled to the original Bioshock. The game has amazing and fluid gameplay, but it just turned out kind of "meh." And that's why I do truly believe that you need to focus on one or the other, if you got a reputation for having a large plot, focus on the plot. Dead Space II was on 2 discs, just saying. And if you are making a game almost solely for Multiplayer, there should be bigger focus on how that handles. Unless your game is play-tested for 4 years, it won't be perfect. It took Valve 7 years to finish TF2, and they still update it to this day. They didn't even think of adding new weapons, or gametypes, or god forbid if they didn’t hats. This isn't to say you can have both, it is simply to say that I don't expect a game that has a massive world to have a massive multiplayer feature, unless its a MMO. And I don't expect there to be people yelling at me. "DOOD STOP HAXXING, UR A NOOB" when I'm playing in a deep questline based game. Until the day that they finish a complete virtual reality, if I really want both, I can always play Dungeons and Dragons, but, then again, Skyrim is just around the corner...