Second verse same as the first or..

The OPEN Beta for Anthem just started Feb 1st, so of course I am playing that too. as my first thoughts post just dropped I will also be getting into what changes/fixes they may have accomplished(so far setting out on expeditions ain a problem no more so that was cool) while in the INITIAL VIP demo they only wanted you to get 2 javelins to try out(you started out with the Ranger and then once you hit level 12 you got ONE unlock token for the second Javelin of your choice, I chose storm) but now in the OPEN demo/beta they are allowing you to drive all of the Javelins. So I will ATTEMPT to use all 4 and see what happens as I stomp around as a Colossus(Meat Shield no Jutsu), flit around in the Interceptor(Ninja Death Fairy), continue sending elemental pain with the Storm(Dr. Strange's Iron Man armor), and damage deal with the Ranger(basically War Machine, lots of guns decent armor, lots of BOOM).

I do like that there isn't too much handholding in Anthem yes they may show you where to fly to but once the fighting stars do you boo boo, BUT they may want to provide better quest maps, we couldn't finish the strong hold last night because either someone else had just defeated the damn big bad or else we couldn't find where it expected us to go. Either way a decent in dungeon map would fix that. Maybe in the next update. As I mentioned in my PREVIOUS post, I am not fully sold on Anthem yet, but I am intrigued. If they had Origin Premier available on Xbox it would probably be worth the hundo a year to be able to play this game on the 10th, but as far as dropping 55 or 72 on it we gone have to play it a little bit more which I plan to do today. See you in the skies freelancer

The Hunt for Christmas Newbs

Merry Christmas to one and all

Okay, now that we have gotten THAT out of the way "Hey Everybody". Another year is coming to a close, it's Christmas so for me it means more gray hairs, the full completion of another revolution around the sun and since Christmas Eve was a Monday 3 straight days off in a row. The birthday tradition was completed with a FEW minor hangups as usual most pizza parlors were closed, and since the movie I wanted to see started at 1:20 I missed out on some pizza lunch specials but it still was a pretty good day.

Enough with the pleasantries it's been a while and for no major reason than I just haven't been bitten by the writing bug, but it's Christmas which means new gamers, new games, and lots of craziness.

Did you ever wish you were IN Mad max, just not out of the car

No, I am not playing. I've been playing a lot of Crossout lately, now granted part of it is because they have an ingenious "sales pitch" if you will. Stay on for 2 hours get a free crate of loot. But I am getting ahead of myself. Crossout is a game set in a post apocalyptic future where you gather together spare parts to build a death mobile, face of against OTHER human players death mobiles OR random puny but annoying AI death mobiles. Yes a lot of mobile killing machines. It is part driving game(arcade style mind you, but you do drive around). If you follow me on twitter you even saw one of my revamped monsters kill two unfortunate players who didn't realize I was not the one(at least not that time in a one v one situation).

Now there are many different facets to Crossout, it doesn't really have a story mode per se. It is all online play you are either in up to 8 on 8 matches, involved in up to 4 player co op to face the AI, there is a "free for all" mode, and Clan battles. There are groups of various NPC groups that you can choose to be a part of, which will grant you spare parts, the ability to craft various parts and weapons(each sect has it's own specialization and thus part access that they grant you) of various rarities, there is an area to "showcase your builds" which can allow other players to like or test drive your latest mad mechanic creation, and a market place to trade your rare or higher valuation parts.

The fun part about E3 Sunday

Is that Microsoft does their thing in the mid afternoon and I am trying to blog that(and as they dropped goo gobs of games it ain easy this year) and then of course I have to get ready for Bethesda. For the quick and dirty, Microsoft dropped the name of Project Scorpio Xbox One X, the release date 11/7/17 and the price 499.99. Yeah Microsoft got on it, they also dropped 42 games 20+ that were Xbox exclusives and many with Xbox One X enhancement.

So when I tell you I am hauling booty to try and put all the trailers some mini descriptions as well as some of my thoughts on all this graphical goodness I am. The problem is, I have laundry to do and Bethesda starts in about 20 minutes. And if you watched Bethesda's show last year you already know that when Microsoft goes ham, so do they. Like this is an all hands on deck situation, EA had to be nice on Saturday they couldn't spill any beans, but Bethesda is the school gossip who was just on the toilet when the head cheerleader admitted to how she passed her last class. It's about to go down.

So I hope everyone had a good weekend and I am typing as fast as I can, of course you can find all this over on Wonderful World

My thoughts on DLC pt.2

As often happens I started getting long in the tooth, anyway yes DLC is here, it's here to stay(as are micro transactions, different post entirely), and some of us accept it others hate it to their very cores. DLC has it's benefits, many of which I myself make use of but if the game sucked there is very little DLC can do to fix it(unless you completely revamp the game). So back to it..

I have talked about in previous blogs either on here or wordpress games I have played, the experiences I have had with said games. I think I ranted once about Magic Duels breaking the damn game with one of their updates(that was definitely on wordpress) because not all updates are good updates. Even if a company doesn't mean to all updates aren't created equal, I used to enjoy playing magic duels but do I really want to go back and remake EVERY deck because some how they glitched them all out? Nope but back to whether or not all downloaded content Paid DLC

My thoughts on DLC

Right around the middle of the last console generation(Ps3 and Xbox 360) there was the advent of a NEW process/product DownLoadable Content. At first what it meant was that if there was a bug found in a game since most systems were online not only compatible but connected that the publisher would kick out a small patch to fix whatever was going wrong in the game. Then, as a way of increasing replay value, companies started pushing out new maps and skins FIRST for free and then for a small fee. In the beginning it was a "meh, whatever I'll see what it is and deal with it later" type of experience. Depending on what type of gamer you were once you beat the game you beat the game, or if you are like me once you got used to the games mechanics it was all about the online play so you weren't worried about some new level.

As micro transactions started to take hold there was a NEW "Invention" the season pass. Now what pray tell is a season pass, well for a fee of anywhere from 10.99(I think that's what the first set of season passes I ever saw cost) to then 29.99 and now 39.99 or 49.99 depending on the game you can get constant software updates. Not patches but new areas, maps, weapons, skins, missions, characters, vehicles, and almost a whole new game. Depending on who you ask you are either buying an unfinished game at full price and are then paying them to finish it with a loan of anywhere from half to 3/4's of the games initial price or else you are paying constant new ip added to your favorite game going forward. This is not to say that you can ONLY get these new accessories by buying the season pass, no you can purchase them a la carte later but then it gets a lot more expensive. I remember when I bought Call of Duty: Ghosts and didn't purchase the season pass(didn't know how much I was gonna be playing it going forward) I could buy the maps for like 10 bucks(if I just wanted the maps) and the guns/dogs for like 5 later on. So yes I paid full price for the initial game, then when I saw what maps were out, I decided if I wanted them and if I wanted the accessories that came out with them or just the maps and paid the 10.99 or 14.99.

Finally bought an external drive for my Xbox

It's one of this and the last gaming cycles biggest controversies: Xbox will let you download, store, play and TRANSPORT your games on an external drive and PlayStation won't. Now to be fair, it wasn't too big a deal before all these digital day one downloads started popping up. I mean yes you might download a new map pack, or a few updates, a couple of arcade games but until ALL the games started downloading onto your actual system hard drive space took a long time to use up. But if you ask your friends with a PS4 or an Xbox one, they will tell you even if you own the disk the game still downloads onto the hard drive taking up prime hard drive space. 30-50 GB doesn't seem like much until you have downloaded 10 games onto your system and THEN it's like well damn I'm almost out of space.

Microsoft to the rescue, go buy you a nice 1, 2, 4, 5, or 6 TB external drive and boom you now have more gaming space and what do you know you can also transport those games like you used to with the old little memory cards back in the PlayStation one and Dreamcast days. So you don't have to take all your disks with you. as long as you keep your hands on it you can take you digital library anywhere you go. I got the MY Passport X from WD, I could have got the one from Seagate(and I might in the future if I decide to buy that external hard drive enclosure that gives you 3 extra usb ports) but while I usually like green MEH, I like black too. The set up is pretty basic, unpack the drive attach the usb 3 cord, plug it into your xbox, boot it up, FORMAT IT....

Gold vs Plus

As most of you know I am a gamer, I may TALK about gaming casually but I go back to the 2600. I'm to gaming as most millennials are to smart phones, I saw the slow progress that was I mean to be fair at the time awesome but now is like, "wow I payed for that crap" to the constant *fireworks fireworks* and the *majestic horns* triple A releases, the independent releases and some of the overhyped stuff. As most of you heard in the Atari days it is thanks to Nintendo that we have these type of rankings. Back in the day Atari just let you make games for their system, they didn't really rate the titles so you might think you Atari sucked if you parents(honestly though lets not JUST blame the parents, some of us went to the story with 20 bucks worth of paper, grass cutting, leaf raking money and wanted the most bang for our buck too) found the "grab box" and just grabbed you a handful of cheap games to go with your system. Nintendo invented the "official seal" which meant that somebody at Nintendo reviewed the games, decided if they were up to Nintendo's quality requirements and then let them be released. And because of that it became a theme, third party games and peripherals still existed(because when it became hard to just make crap software folks went to making crappy hardware) but if the system you were playing with didn't seem to make it an OFFICIAL PERIPHERAL/SOFTWARE RELEASE you steered away unless you just liked burning money.

How is this like phones some of you youngins might be asking, remember how back in the day nobody sold crap for Apple but the apple store or major retailers with the Apple seal on it? Yeah same thing, logitech and everybody else makes stuff for Apple now, they just know what level of quality they have to put into it. Yes you can still find cheap junk, but you fully understand it is cheap junk and admit that you may just be lighting your money on fire. Back to gaming, does that mean "cheap games" disappeared, no. I mean if you wait long enough even triple A games get slashed to under 30 bucks, or if they turn out to be bombs 25 or less but now we have a different method to delivering games:Digitally. When most gaming companies say digital what they means is you download it, no physical copy just whatever is on you gaming machine. Be it a PS3 or PS4, an Xbox 360 or an Xbox one, and while I don't own a Wii anymore or a WiiU Eikichi says they also have an online store so as you can see digital is here to stay. The benefits of digital of course are that

COD:Black ops Laced up, Locked and Loaded(11/17/10)

After doing the initial thoughts blog I've of course been playing, and playing lots of multiplayer, shooting lots of people, using C4, using Nova gas, using semtex, using the RC car, using napalm, mortar strikes. I've been an evil bastard, I will admit.

Okay so let's go boots on the ground with this:the options on the games are outrageous. Once you reach the required level to unlock the ability to do something as long as ya got the COD cash and are the right level buy away. I've bought C4 and claymore's(as my equipment), switched from willie pete's to Nova Gas, gone back and forth between semtex and frag grenades.

Why back and forth? Sometimes its better to have a frag grenade, the ability to roll towards a potential target especially if you cook it first(for those not familiar with the process of "cooking" a grenade its where you pull the pin hold it for a few seconds then toss it makes it harder to run away from) makes it devastating. Where as if you have a person potentially hiding by a door or wall a semtex grenada thrown against a near by wall might protect you from walking into an ambush.

That is also why I switched to nova gas from willie pete's if you aren't prepared for nova gas, the ticking away of you health saves me bullets. Plus somebody injured who walks into it might as well hang it up. Your dead fam, point blank period. The weapons are different then Modern Warfare 2, I miss my scar sometimes, but the Galil is nice. I'm using the AUG right now it does decent damage, has nice range, a large magazine and reloads in an OK amount of time, I may have to switch to slight of hand though. I'm just saying there are times when I could use that extra second or two.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

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Aaaah yes black ops, somehow I completely skipped black ops II but I really did enjoy the first one on PS3. This was shortly after my 360 had died(salute *taps playing in the background*) and I had changed over to the "enemy camp" (yes it's in quotation marks because I am an old gamer, it ain about the system it is all about the games. And the shiny new blu ray player the PS3 now had me using). PSN(playstatin network) may have more users on their network currently(as PS4 has shipped more units than Xbox one/Xbone and with the already installed PS3 units even though the 360 won last gaming cycle) but Xbox live always seems to have a better interface. No online interface can be perfect because we all don't use equal broadband providers. Some of us are kicking along with 15 down and 1-3 up while others are dealing with 5 down and .44 up(that's mbps). I remember Black Ops one fondly, I just didn't pick up Black ops II not really for any reason. Just like I didn't get Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, I have Ghosts I just didn't pick up the next one at the time.

I will start another post about DLC(Down Loadable Content, I know download is one word but that is how it is written, don't shoot the messenger), season passes, and the like later. Some feel it is the bane of the current gaming cycle(end of PS3/360 through the Playtation 4 and Xbox one lifetimes) others see it as a POTENTIAL for expanding/extending the life cycle of older games. Like I said that will be another blog. I hope you enjoy this throwback post no matter how short it is

Games I'm playing: Magic Duels

Now way back yonder in the 90's a card game came out called: Magic the Gathering, it is in the line of the Pokemon card game or Yugioh(well maybe not Yugioh, I think you can just play cards period regardless of mana costs in Yugioh), you buy a started deck(usually about 30 to 50 cards), a few booster decks(around 15 cards per pack), you arrange the best cards you find into some semblance of a fighting deck depending on what creatures you have. Many I day did I spend playing this game, Magic is slightly different than other card games in that it is built with a potential cooperative mode from the start. Magic uses 5 different "magic types" white, black, red, green, and blue, if you look at the back of a card the line up in a pentagram pattern:

Like so, and per the old rules who ever was diagonal from you was your enemy(so for white it was red and black, for green blue and black and vice versa) and directly next to you was your friend. Now some of you might be looking and saying, "wait what, but that means both of your allies are also allies with one of your enemies!" yes, yes they are. Which makes for an interesting bit of diplomacy, because sooner or later you are gonna want to go for a kill shot and are going to have to make a request. for black to win white and green have to die, for red to win blue and white, and so on and so forth.

How you playin Fallout 4, but didn't play Skyrim

Eikichi hit me with that the other day, as if because a game uses the mechanics of another game you are committing some sort of Gaming blasphemy if you don't play them both. I mean I've watched him play Skyrim plenty of times, wasn't really my thing. Is it because I don't like bow and arrow or sword and sorcery games, nah. Seriously, do you not know how long I have been gaming I've seen damn near every game that came down the pike. Played most of them, like Dragon's Lair for those who thing Skyrim is all evil and devious with how it kills you dig the emulator up. That was evil, you didn't even get a chance to be in the fight sometimes you just turned a corner and *doh*. This is usually about when you got slapped in the arcade if a parent was around. I mean if you want to understand why your older siblings look at you on some of your death sequences like "pfft amatuer" this is why, when we say quarter eaters/vacuums THIS is what we mean. Somebody turned a choose your own adventure book into a game, sounds cool right. Then obviously you never read a choose your own adventure book.

Okay sorry, got sucked down the anger of games past moment, so to Skyrim first off it isn't online multiplayer, ding for me. While you can create stuff a lot of your creations aren't as fun in the sword and sorcery era(at least in gaming, flaming sword of ultimate evisceration sounds fun in theory but you don't really get it), where as I get all kinds of cool grenades, automated gun emplacements, laser rifles, gatling guns, sniper rifles, sub machine guns, Gauss rifles, as well as machetes, swords, crow bars, and tire irons. Now yes if this game(or Skyrim) came out 30 years ago first it would have been a quarter vacuum(cause you are a death sponge, quicksave is your friend actually it is your master. Think I'm playing, aiight walk around that corner and fall to those zombie hordes after you had just found cool weapon number 15, leveled up and completed a mission if you want to(and yes I have).

Call of Duty:Black ops III

It's been a few years since I talked about the games I am currently(or recently) playing, and while I know I talked about playing the original(aaaaah my lovely and dearly missed crossbow, I knew you well) I skipped over the second black ops. This one is more of the same, but with the added twist of some of the mechanics of Cod(Call of Duty for casual and non gamers) Advanced Warfare, which I didn't actually play. I think at the time I was either CoD burned out, or else I just wasn't in the mood yet. Anyway kind of fresh off the presses(It came out November 6, 2015), I pre-ordered it, picked it up day one, did the day one software update(I don't know why every game has one now adays but they do) and booted it up.

Now I know I have mentioned it before but I don't really play these games for the story mode, some of them are fun, and nice, hell you can even get a decent understanding of how to play the games from them, but honestly I am here for on-line play. Both major systems have adequate multiplayer set ups so this isn't like X-box vs Playstation 2, regardless of system you can get your frag on. Anyway

Afternoon Ponderers

Seems like I have been getting a nice amount of traffic lately and I want to thank all who are coming through. I know I disappeared again but lets just say I had other things on my mind besides blogging. I know I talk about whatever but some days you just want to keep it moving and not get too deep into the details. So that's what I did, let's see what I have noticed lately welp my Eagles are sucking right now, I'm talking Dyson sucking, 3 quarter Car Wash sucking. It would be okay if the offense was stalling a little since you know Mike Vick is out and all, but our defense has forgotten what the word meant. We let RG3 slice us up, a rookie I mean come on Rookies used to hate having to play Philadelphia because their main view was gonna be turf. I understand that yeah maybe Juan Castillo wasn't aggressive enough for some people but he's been gone for a couple of weeks now, whats the new guys excuse. This is Philly you want us to give you some breathing room:Blitz, Blitz some more, Blitz one more time and if the so happen to get the first down, Blitz them again. They have a mobile quatertback let's see how fast he really is. Let's see how accurate he can be after he has been sucking wind for a quarter trying to evade the blitz.

And back to gaming, Naruto Shippuuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

This isn't a new game, it isn't even really a popular game it's just one of the games I'm playing at the moment when I'm bored and putting flame to incense.  Naruto Shippuuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 is based on the Naruto Shippuuden anime and thus the Naruto manga and as with many anime based games there is an option to have the audio in English or in Japanese(being a HUGE sub fan, I of course opt for Japanese with english Subtitles), mainly because they usually get the actual voice actors who play the characters to do the voice overs. So it's pretty much a seemless immersion into the anime. NS2 is along the lines of a fighting RPG you have to walk around and do quests to help you get items to get strong but for the most part the story moves along once you go and have certain fights. You don't really level up though in this one, you get new versions of the character as the story moves along and you get past certain chapters of the story, that coincide with things that happened in the anime. In this case you get regular Naruto who just knows how to use the Rasengan, then you get Naruto who knows how to use the Rasen Shuriken, then you get access to the "sage mode" Naruto who also uses the Rasen Shuriken but it's alot stronger. There is also an "unlockable" Naruto if you beat the game.

Fighting Role Playing Games also differ from normal RPG's in the fact that your main goal is to get characters, items, and abilities to use in the actual tournament or P v P action outside the main story. You really don't have to play the Main story at all and can just fight with friends using the characters unlocked when you first open the box, there is also an online component. If you are going to play online though, I recommend you play out the story otherwise you will be catching a few Sasuke Uchiha Kirin, and Naruto Rasen Shurikens to the face. If you are a fan of the anime you will recognize some of the locales and the epic battles. In some of the fights there will be added "interactive sequences" where you can use button combinations and directional pad presses to attempt to earn stars. The faster you enter in the combinations the more stars you get(if you fail you will be sent back to the beginning of the sequence), you have the chance to earn what is called a secret factor. Which is usually a scene from the show itself or the Naruto anime in a kind of faded out 2D. It makes you want to fight harder and pay attention more, while it adds to the story it's unnecessary to go ahead and finish out the game. For those who have to have absolute 100 percent "gotta catch them all" completion of the game there is an option to go back and attempt to earn those stars later in a game. In the Hokage's(or Kazekage later in the game) office there is a ninja who will offer you the chance to go back and refight battles.