The Walking Dead - Episode 3: The Long Road Ahead Reaction

oh......OH! 

Damn it all to hell! Why Telltale? You make the emotion so raw with your ridiculously good storytelling I mean, why? Why are you so good at doing this?!? What tragic lives have you lived?!? Are you all living the lives of paranoid schizophrenics that hear a voice of a guy called Ronaldo telling you that zombies actually exist?!? If so you should seriously get that checked out....

But in all seriousness, paranoid schizophrenia is not something to necessarily joke about, and neither is Telltale. The reason being is because Telltale and schizophrenia are serious things because you could possibly get schizophrenia from playing Telltale's The Walking Dead. I'm super serious! The agonizing decisions one has to make multiplied by the time limit one has added on by the emotional stress by ones decisions could lead to the breakdown of thought process and poor emotional responsiveness. Or schizophrenia for short. It's a super serious problem you guys! 

Take for example, that awful decision of doing nothing in the second episode where I had to choose between  helping Lilly save her father or help Kenny kill her father. It was a tough position because I didn't want to loose my loyalty to Kenny (who was awesome until that point) and I really didn't want to piss off Lilly (because she was a bitch [still is]). Well the thought process was too much and I didn't decide quick enough and Kenny squashed Larry's head in with a boulder (or something). My emotional response was too much of course and it was hard to go on, but being the resilient bastard I am, I continued. 

Of course that decision ultimately came back to bite my ass so hard that the emotional response to that decision I made so long ago in the other episode was even harder to cope with. It hit me right in the feels man, right....in.....the.....feels....

Right in the feels! 

And my character was gonna get laid man! Damn it all to hell! I did not make those agonising decision that tested my manlihood to end up with nothing good going for my character. Dam it all to hell! 

Well at the end of the day at least we still have Clementine and unlike 'Papa' in The Road I actually managed to do some good for that little girl that has (somehow) managed to stay alive all this time. Anyway, I recommend you start playing this game its an EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER! 

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RIP This Console Generation

They're all sequels!?!

I don't know why it took me two years to fucking realise this because I probably had some mad delusion that someone, I don't know would actually make another innovative game that would blow my socks off. The last time I experienced that innovative experience was Borderlands in 2009 when all those people thought it was going to be shit and continued to hype up about Modern Warfare 2, like most wankers do. Well I took satisfaction in that they were wrong and that the game became very successful both critically and in sales. You see what most "analysts" missed is that gamers were beginning to become hungry for something more innovative since there last fix in 2007. Sadly today there are no innovative titles this fall. 

So that got me thinking, what has been interestingly different from the bollox that has been copying Modern Warfare 2 and therefore narrowing the selection of games? Well nothing great, and by that I mean nothing that got an average score of 8 or 9 by critics. I mean Metro 2033 was a pretty cool game that came out of the Ukraine and that was ultimately different but it wasn't great. So then I looked towards the only thing that could probably revive the innovation and have less of the focus on the constant stream of fucking sequels. And that was E3 2010, the last bastion of hope for this generation of console gaming, and my god was it awful. Both Microsoft and Sony's press conferences consisted of "motion gaming" with cameras and well, moving....and all of it didn't involve a couch! It was awkward to watch and it looked even more awkward to play and Microsoft thought it would be "fucking dope" to bring out little kids and play kiddies games. But that's nothing compared to Tim Schafer coming out at the Microsoft press conference and revealing the Sesame Street Kinect game. It was the biggest betrayal since Mufasa was betrayed by his own brother Scar in the Lion King. That moment still sends shivers down my spine. Anyway the whole press conference was the gaming apocalypse! 

Gamers reaction everywhere of E3 2010

But for some reason looking at my reaction in hindsight to this mess was that I could always wait until next year. Well two E3's later and no fucking change, except now its appropriate to put singers on the stage now. The sad thing about this years E3 was that the highlights were all fucking sequels and nothing new looked remotely interesting except one press conference which was Ubisofts. Yes the dark horses came striding in to reveal a NEW INNOVATIVE TITLE!! OMFG! Which was obviously Watchdogs. And it was awesome! Everyone was talking about it, and everyone wanted to know when that glorious fucker was coming out. And it was the sole reason Ubisoft won E3! Everyone was starving for something new and innovative and we caught a tiny glimpse of it and everyone went crazy! That ultimately tells me why this console generation is over, done, finished. Because all they're doing now is stalling with sequels and prequels to squeeze that last drop of cash from people who aren't sick of it yet. And that is unfortunately the best business model for publishers in this shit storm of an economic climate. 

What drove me over the edge? Just reading this article that gave the top 5 anticipated games of this fall. In case you didn't notice they're all sequels. Anyway Ill continue to buy the sequels since that's where all the money is going, some of them has to be good.

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Blizzard Developers Are Saps

I don't really know if this is worth blogging about but it just made me slightly pissed off to go on and do this post. Well just recently Blizzard South developer Jay Wilson slagged fellow game developer and creator of the Diablo franchise David Brevik over his tiny criticism of the more recent Diablo 3. David Brevik did not say anything personal about the guys in particular he just gave his two cents on a franchise he basically created. What ensued was Blizzard South developers going on none other than Facebook to well, none other than rage. See the discussion below: 

As you can see all their names and parts in the process of making the game are distributed. Not the smartest move for game devs to share their opinions but the whole thing becomes all the more silly when you actually read what David Brevik said; 

IncGamers: You are very well known in the world of ARPGs, and I am going to ask you, Diablo 3 is probably the most anticipated PC title in 10 years. What’s your opinion on the final product?

David Brevik: Honestly, I think that they did a lot of the things the best they could, it was a very different game than I would have created, the team and personalities, the people, the talent and all the design philosophies of the people that worked on it in Irvine, we called them Blizzard South, those people have their own style and the their own way they like to design. It was very, very different from the Blizzard North.

So I think that when Blizzard South took over the development of Diablo 3 it was inevitable that they were going to create an experience that was in the Diablo theme but concentrated more towards the things that they liked to experience. Including more story and things like that.

When Blizzard North shut down they lost a ton of experience with why the Action RPG works and what about it works. That’s really difficult to recover from. They didn’t have the experience of people that knew it well. This is why you do things with random levels for example, and so when you lose that experience you are going to create a very different experience in the end than we would have created.

IncGamers: Do you think they bought the wrong people in? As we understand, Jay Wilson, for example, his background was RTS. From our point of view it looked like they misunderstood what kept people playing, The type of loot drops, which has been a big issues. One of the other issues is they have not listened to their community, and they have not anlaysed what makes up that addictive Diablo experience. What are your thoughts on that?

David Brevik: Well, the loot system. They made some decisions with the loot system that were very different than the way that we did it in Diablo 2 and I think that obviously the community has been upset with some of the decisions they made. Having all of your powers work off your main weapon and things like that, to having blues that are more powerful than yellows. Eventually the auction house and how that worked, even something as simple as when you equip an item and it’s bound to your character permanently would have totally changed the dynamic of the game.

It seems odd that they have not really responded in a quick fashion to some of these things. I think they are very well aware of the problems at this point and are trying to fix some of this stuff. It’s a shame that they had to learn some of these painful lessons

IncGamers: As you created Diablo, how do you feel about it? Do you feel a little let down that the legacy has kind of been mashed up?

David Brevik: I have very mixed emotions about it (laughs). On one hand I am sad that people haven’t enjoyed Diablo because it’s a love, a passion, and its obvious people still have a giant love and passion for Diablo and they are speaking out about it because they have such love for it. That makes me feel great.

I am sad because people are outraged and, you know, some of the decision they have made are not the decisions I would make and there have been changes in philosophy and that hasn’t gone over very well. I think in that way I am a little sad.

I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was and how unique and special that group was. I am hoping that, as this happens very often in the industry, you see it with Call of Duty and things like that , when the people leave the game changes and it shows how critical people are in this industry.

IncGamers: One of the questions the Gazillion guys asked me to ask you was, where did the name Diablo come from?

David Brevik: I thought of the game when I was in high school and I lived in the east part of San Francisco in a town called Danville and I loved at the base of Mount Diablo and that’s where the name comes from. Once I found out what the mountain name was, I thought that was awesome, I didn’t speak Spanish, so I thought I wanted to use that as a title for a nemesis in a videogame. It’s simply from where I lived.

IncGamers: Well thanks a lot David, you’ve brought a lot of pleasure to millions of people over the years and hopefully you’ll continue to do so.

You know it's not the whole thing of actually being immature about the small critique about the game that pisses me off, its just the manner in which they did it. Facebook, really? I mean it pretty much doesn't separate yourself from a bitchy fifteen year old teenager. Now Twitter, there we have some ground of actually growing a pair and telling the person directly and the rest of the world how you actually feel. Then it would be a completely different issue. But you guys had to do it on Facebook and then delete the post and then probably got the guys from upstairs calling on your door. You see if you did it on Twitter you would be representing yourself and no one else, the fact that you did it collectively on Facebook makes you all guilty, and sad. I mean I'm sure they're pissed, you don't spend that long on a game to match the standards of the predecessors just to have the guy that created it all to say..."meh". Of course you'd be pissed I would to, but get some fucking initiative. And tell him to go fuck himself, in his face.

I don't really care much for Diablo and I'm a moderate player at best, I certainly like playing Diablo 3 in the modern gaming world regardless of all the difficulties.

I just find this whole situation really fucking stupid, but I'd rather developers take some initiative and stand up for their titles publicly to show the fans that they mean business. And not cowering on Facebook!

Any thoughts?

And yes all the pictures are stolen from reddit.com :) 

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I Now Despise Competitive Multiplayer Games For Good

Describes multiplayer in general on a number of different levels....

Multiplayer games are starting to grind my gears. Well that's a lie, multiplayer games have always grind my gears, why? Because I always had the nerve and the adrenaline to keep playing them and gain nothing from them. You see I don't find achievements in being the best in any game or having the highest level and always reaching top of the play list in a game of Team Deathmatch. It's always pursing more games to fill the need of telling myself 'I'm good at this game and I want to challenge people that are equally as good as me' and this is the essence of any multiplayer game. But of course you're lying to yourself because there are always going to be a ton of more people better than you unless your MLG. So I came to ask myself why am I truly wasting tons of hours playing this game if I am getting nothing out of it? I don't necessarily consider myself a competitive person but naturally I don't like to lose and due to this I usually get frustrated in a game and myself included. I get frustrated because when I lose a game that I certainly felt I should have won I tend to continue playing the game to get a win so I can justify investing all these hours I have put into these games. And all for what? Just to get a small satisfaction of telling myself 'I'm good at this game' when I don't really care to begin with. I know this is confusing but allow me to explain with an example. 

The memories! They're bad!

I just finished up a game of King of the Hill on Gears Of War 3. GoW3 is the most infuriating game to play multiplayer wise and gets the most biggest rages ever even from the best of us. It's a fact, I have played a huge amount of Gears games with my friends and most of them cant take it because its so frustrating, usually quitting after probably an average of 3-5 rounds of multiplayer games. I press on usually, that's because I love the game and the franchise. Why love the game if its so infuriating and don't have a competitive personality? Well, it's the only game I have ever had a challenge. Games like Call Of Duty, Halo and Battlefield all have pretty easy learning curves to their multiplayer, to me its just gun and run. Obviously those players would tell me differently but then again I don't care, because those games became boring and ultimately not entertaining for me because no amount of skill that some players achieved didn't entertain me. So why invest time into those games if the skill you get from them is ultimately worthless to me? So, naturally I don't play them. Let the record show that I feel all three of those franchises are mundane and ran into the ground and have shown no innovations in their franchises for a long time. Ok so back to the game. In the King of the Hill game things got tense naturally as the score became very even but my team withheld and we won the round, so one round to go. The second round got far more tense and we lost the round by one point and in overtime. Unlucky is to sum up that round, we should of won but when things got more tense and the the 'hill' kept changing I guess we couldn't keep up, so that leads us to the final round. So this round starts up really well but ends EXACTLY THE SAME as the last round. We got up to the final point and lost in overtime. I wanted to scream at my team but I kept to myself as always (I never rage, ever), and as a man I accepted the defeat. Lets face it shit happens and there is nothing you can do about it, sometimes you just have to shut the fuck up and take it. This doesn't happen quite a lot in Gears games especially in the manner of this one, I mean it was grade A ridiculous. And It wasn't fun. So what do you do with a game that isn't fun? Simple, you stop playing it. 

Moral of the story? I don't give a fuck....

Believe me at that moment the game was over I wanted nothing more than to play another round and prove to myself that 'I can do better' and that 'I am good at this game' but that was all bullshit. I am no longer going to justify my means to play multiplayer games any more. To me they're simply not fun and are ridiculously  addictive forms of entertainment that appeals to our inner competitive personality, and it has only came to this point that I have realized that I control whether or not I have a competitive personality or not and not these fucking games. So I choose not to have a competitive personality and I am going to stop chasing these phantom achievements for good now. Fuck you multiplayer, I never really liked you anyway! 

Give your thoughts on competitive multiplayer and tell me how you challenge yourself! 

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The Man Behind Atari; Creator of Video Games

(Courtesy of Kotaku) 

It's hard to believe that 40 years ago Atari would be the creator and ruler of the gaming industry. Of course home consoles wouldn't have been very popular in the 70's and what most kids used to do was go to the arcade. Where all the best games were made by none other than Atari. Now of course, they're practically finished publishing any game close to being decent and we don't consider them a major player in the world of gaming anymore. But there was a time when Nolan Bushnell ruled and gave kids like Steve Jobs their first job (lol). But of course we all know that a lot has changed since Bushnell sold his company for 28 million after four years of owning it and the rest as they say is history. 

You should check out Eurogamers awesome interview with the man himself as they discuss the past, present and future.

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Terraria Review

I've been very inactive on the Blarg for the last while. I'd like to explain why.

The first day the Steam Summer Sale began, Terraria, the 2D sandbox, went on sale for €2.50. Being a person who owns 3 Minecraft accounts (I got one for free and bought an extra one for €10 in case you think I sent Mojang €30 extra) I never thought I'd buy Terraria, the fact that it was 2D always made me feel it would be something lesser than Minecraft considering how it's an entire dimension shorter and due to the lack of noise that I heard (or rather didn't hear) I really didn't think that it could be THAT good. I was wrong. Oh so very very wrong and it's become one of my most played games on Steam in the space of 2 weeks.
Terraria is a sandbox game from indie producers "Relogic". It's hard to not compare this game to Minecraft but that's because they have so many similarities. Graphics wise, gameplay wise and more. The game involves mining, crafting and building just like Minecraft does only there's so much more stuff to do.

Minecraft has 5 tiers of items, Wood, stone, iron, gold and diamond. Terraria on the other hand has way more than double that. Wood, copper, iron, silver, gold, meteor, lava, shadow, hallowed, mythril, adamantie, cobalt, hero and that's just some of the armour classes, there is also a variety of other clothing options such as top hats, wings (Both demonic and angelic) and even the hero's garb from Zelda. Weapons wise there's also a lot more to choose from. For example, you got your basic swords, bows and spears. The weapons list however, also includes handguns, rifles, shotguns, lazer rifles, flails, boomerangs, star cannons and even more. Accessories are also welcome such as rocket boots, grappling hooks and various others that can be used to influence combat. Where combat is concerned, it's a lot more diverse. Potions and spells can easily turn the tide of battle between you and your variety of foes such as goblins, demons, mutant slimes and more.  The game has a variety of other bosses, something which I felt Minecraft was lacking (The repetitive pattern of the Ender Dragon hardly makes it a boss. More of a test of how you can press space, left click and another direction button). The bosses are also diverse and challenging raging from a demonic eye of Cthullu to a flying Wvyren high in the skys.

Skeletron, one of the games many bosses

The building is a lot more diverse with a variety of other features you can add to your house such as bath tubs, bins and more. In Terraria, you have the oppertunity to recruit NPCs to live in houses you yourself have built, be it a shoddy room in the dungeon of  your tower or a beautiful mansion for your merchants. This  creates a more active atmosphere in your home as a once quiet shack can quickly become noisy manor.
The graphics and music are both equally charming. The music fits the theme of exploration perfectly and has fitting and well written music for the bosses. The graphics also are also reminiscent of the 16bit Minecraft graphics. Just like Minecraft, Terraria has a collosal dedicated community who are commited to making texture packs and mods from the likes of Fallout to Zelda and even mods which further continue the game. This is especially welcome as the Terraria developers have ceased development of the game. 

Overall, If you haven't already guessed, Terraria has given the bums rush to Minecraft in terms of it's position in my heart. Terraria has now taken it's place. It has way more to do, a lot more customization and a more involving battle system. I highly recommend that if you ever have an extra €10 to spend or even less if there's a special on offer. 

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EA is in the Shitter!

Click to enlarge

Wow, if two years of secondary level education of economics has taught me anything is that this graph could not possibly be a good thing. Now we know recently THQ are also in the shitter business wise but I wonder when EA will announce they're in the same level as shit as them. It's hard to estimate considering I'm not Michael Pachter or.......any other stock person.....

I believe this sort of thing has been going on for a while now, EA's stock has been hugely dropping over the coming months and I wonder when this will affect any of there games. Well it's sort of been affecting their games considering they were taking down the multiplayer for some along with the servers of others.. But then I realised, I haven't bought an EA game since 2010 and I don't like any of their franchises. So right now I couldn't really give a fuck, they can eat shit and die for all I care. 

I guess the folks to be concerned would be the guys who work at EA and to any fans who like Mass Effect, Dead Space, Battlefield, Medal of Honor (lol), Fifa and the rest. 

Oh wait I do like Mirrors Edge, if they make a sequel to that they wont be on my shit list but you know they'll probably still be on the shit list business wise. 

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It's a Big Year for The Walking Dead...

It's mad to think that a comic book would easily turn into a franchise in less than two years. What is even more mad is that all of its ports into different areas of entertainment have been ridiculously successful. And not just successful in terms of making money but getting the critics and fanboys on board as well. It's a ridiculously difficult challenge to get one franchise across the board on every entertainment platform (or even the majority) and still remain as, if not better, efficient as the source material. But with The Walking Dead, you'd think it would be a fluke. Well, your wrong. 

It starts with a writer, who goes to a comic book publisher and wants to make a story. But the writer is given the creative freedom to do pretty much whatever he wants (because it's dirt cheap to make a comic book) and he gets to keep the rights to the world he has created (characters and all included). That last part is pretty important. This is because the writer chooses what he can do with it, depending if its popular enough of course. For one Robert Kirkman this is the case and because he has stuck by his franchise wherever it goes, it remain successful. There is no 'blind luck' when it comes to working with the entertainment industry. 

The TV show off the Walking Dead started with director Frank Darabont's love for the comic books and ,with his connections in the TV industry, started pursuing the rights. It took a while to make TV companies budge on a zombie show, but eventually AMC agreed. Robert Kirkman's role on the show stood as executive producer and as a writer. The show went on to break records in the TV industry, season two averaged with 6.9 million viewers and the finale brought in 9 million viewers pretty much shattering records. This officially made the Walking Dead one if not the most watched show in the United States.

The show follows the original source material which is the comic books. Of course not word for word and certainly not introducing all the characters of the comics, but it was expected. The story had to be translated for television viewers and that isn't difficult considering the Walking Dead focuses on character interactions than the actual zombies themselves. The show is fantastic, there is no denying that, a very well constructed show with great acting and compelling story which makes watching all the more enjoyable. The show surprisingly improves some elements and characters that weren't in the comic books. Take the character relationship that was between Rick and Shane. This was consistently being developed throughout season one and two and became the main issue of drama as the shows core. As I said the zombies are only a backdrop, Rick, throughout season two, was mainly concerned with his friends sanity on top of dealing with the whole 'you fucked my wife situation'.This was similar in the comic books but was nowhere near as good as the show. There's no denying that whatever circumstances anyone is under, they would still be concerned about these characters particular situations. It's gripping stuff no doubt. 

This year the finale of season two and the premier of season three will air later this year. It's exciting stuff especially this season as the introduction of the 'Governor' will truly make the shit hit the fan plot wise. I'm not going to spoil everything or anything for that matter, but if you haven't read the comics, get excited. Overall my rating for the show is considerably high and would lie at about 8.6/10. This will probably change after the third season, hopefully for the better. 

Just recently the franchise has extended itself on to video games. This was worrying at first, but now that I have played the latest episodes of Telltale's: The Walking Dead I have certainly built up an opinion for it. It's simply amazing. Honestly, I was sceptical about Kirkman's choice of selecting Telltale to handle a Walking Dead game. It's a huge project to handle for even the best video game designers out there, I mean some cant even tell their own stories correctly. But surprisingly they made all the right choices. For one you don't play as Rick, you play as a completely new character called Lee Everett. This is an excellent choice as we're not confined to a story that has already been told in the show and the comics, this allows the player to play the way they want to. Next is the gameplay, the game focuses heavily on story so characterization and emotion is a key thing to perceive as the player. This caters to the gameplay as the game plays a lot like Heavy Rain, quick time events is more or less the action sequences of the game (which takes up a third of the episodes) and the action usually focuses on planning and executing. The majority of the game however is focused on your interaction with the characters, this will tend to shape a large proportion of the story as whoever you feel connected to the most and if you prefer their decisions over others then they'll tend to trust you more, which could save your life later in the game. An example of this was when I tried to play the neutral and tried to get along with everyone, but this became impossible as I had to made a sickening choice in five seconds that determined the life of another character. I was too scared to make the decision and the game continued without my involvement, the result was the lost of trust between one character and the mutual respect of another. I wasn't proud about the decision, it made me feel dirty, and this all happened in front of a little girl I'm meant to protect, Clementine. 

Clementine is the sole responsibility of the player character, and keeping her away from the violence and zombies of the world is difficult. Like Rick in the show and comics he tries to keep his son from the horrors of the world they live in. And its gut wrenching to see you fail on that level. It's hard to describe it, you'd have to play the game to understand how sensitive the interactions between the player character and the other characters around you. One small statement in a conversation between your character and another is the difference between pending drama ahead or even more pending drama ahead. You have to stay on your toes to survive the game, but to be completely honest, I have never been more engaged in a video game in my life when playing this game. Telltale have not only told an amazing story, they have brought the Walking Dead to life and off the pages which I thought was impossible. Other than the mind blowing story, impossible player decisions and the overwhelming emotion while playing the game, the best part of the game is that they follow the comics. And not only that, they also fit themselves as a prequel to the comics books. In the first episode you meet the likes of Hershel and Glenn before they meet up with Rick. It's awesome, and you can pretty much consider it cannon to the main ongoing story which is the comics.

The success has been immense as the game is second on the most downloaded list on the Xbox and Telltale have announced that its their best selling game ever. Critics love it along with the fans, and Telltale have announced that a second season is definitely on its way. Overall I love it, it's easily comparable to the comics and I fucking love that the story is engageable it's easily a 9.7/10. And I don't think I have ever given something that high. 

As long as we're still on video games Activision has announced that a prequel to the TV series of the Walking Dead is in development. It will tell the story of both Daryl Dixon and his brother Merle. Having the Daryl as the main protagonist of the game is ace as he's easily one of the best characters in the show. The game will be more action orientated and will be an FPS. The two will be trying to survive in the zombie riddled Georgia and will include some characters of the show. The whole thing sounds interesting but I'll give my two cents when I see some gameplay. 

Last but certainly not least is the comic books,  the very origin of the Walking Dead. Recently it celebrated its landmark of one hundred issues, and given the sales of the book it's probably safe to say it may go one hundred more. The sales were literally staggering selling exactly 383,612. Wow, that is the best selling indie comic of the century and that's no joke. The last indie comic book that came close to this statistic was The Darkness in 1997 with fifteen variant covers and roughly 357,000 copies sold. I'm sure the Walking Dead's thirteen variants helped it get there but it's no doubt an amazing statistic and with the recent development of digital comics who knows what the total sales of physical and digital copies were. Either way I'm proud that Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard have come thus far and with the recent success of everything Walking Dead I hope they really shake things up for next one hundred or so. 

With the release of this landmark issue we also have to consider the new crazy mother fucker they have introduced into the Walking Dead and that guy is Negan. I'm not sure how you pronounce that but I'm going with Nee-Gan so, confirmation on that would be swell. But overall, the issue is.....god words can't describe it. Devastating? Pure anguish? Immense and overwhelming madness? Distressing for sure, but in the pure might of what makes the Walking Dead great. And that's forever killing my innocence over and over again, and it keeps happening, every fucking time! So short answer, yes, I love it in all of its gory detail. It's what comes next is the real question and only time can tell. 

So Negan.....I like him. Basing entirely on introductions, I'd say this guy is far more fucked up than the Governor, and that is saying a lot. This book was so creepy and so ominous that I shuddered a little at the thought of "eeny, meeny, miny, moe..." and this "vampire bat", again you'd have to read the books to understand exactly what they refer to but the very thought of this again is disturbing...to say the least. And as for Negan, I like him, he reminds me so much of Al Capone and is more an insane gangster than the estranged Governor. So (again) only time will tell how things play it for Negan. But one thing is certain, you can easily compare both the Governor and Negan, who will win on the most fucked up individual will be a good blog post in the future and one I will consider. But Negan has a lot to a live up to....but he's on the right fucked up path. Let the battle of the psychopaths begin! It's going to be bloody!

I'm going to give up this post on a hight note giving my review on The Walking Dead issue 100 to be a flat out 9.9/10. It's pretty much perfect and it was nothing I was expecting, as I didn't have much expectations to begin with. Mainly because I couldn't believe The Walking Dead could get any more fucking creepy, thankfully I was wrong and I was entertained. So I am happy how the issue turned out but I doubt I will ever forget....

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Rome Total War 2 Announced!

Rome Total War is one of my all time favourite RTS's and one of my favourite games of all time. The folks behind the Total War franchise "Creative Assembly have just confirmed work on the game and released a live action trailer based around the game. You can expect to see me make plenty of posts about this game in the coming months.

The large scale battles of Rome Total War 1 left me spellbound.

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Regarding Sexism in Video Games...

Sexism in video-games...

As most of you are probably aware, there is this woman who goes by the name "Feminist Frequency" on Youtube. On her channel, she discusses feminism under a variety of different mediums in todays world for example, Comic Books, Video Games, Tv Shows films and more and describes how these things are sexist. However Anita Sarkeesian (The main operator of Feminist Frequency) came under a lot of fire recently when she demanded money to make a series to explain under a variety of heading how todays video game industry is "Sexist". From vandalising her Wikipedia page to finding out a lot of her personal details, Ms. Sarkeesian was digitally assaulted by people who were angered by this (Mainly due to it's rapid popularity growth on 4chan). While I agree that there is a lot of sexism in the community of gaming, the idea that the industry itself is sexist is...RIDICULOUS! Before continuing to read this post, please watch the video below so you can understand more of what I'm going to be discussing.

Anita Sarkeesian hoped to raise $6000 however ended up blitzing passed that to score over $150'000, mainly due to the tremendous help from some of my fellow gamers who with their Shakespearean vocabulary posted comments like "im gun rap u up" and so on. However lets get back to the video's point. Ms. Sarkeesian wants to discuss the whole topic of sexism under the following headings

Damsel in Distress 

The Fighting F#@k Toy

The Sexy Sidekick 

The Sexy Villainess

Background Decoration 

Any active video-game player will know how bullshit this argument is. I'm going to post here, my own argument against these theories however this may be sexist according to Anita Sarkeesian as after watching more of her videos, pretty much everything to do with women is sexist.
To start off with, there's the Damsel in Distress, a foundation for hundreds of thousands of stories in the last hundred years or so, whether it's in the time of cowboys and Indians or during the era of knights and dragons. Calling a woman being trapped and a lover/family member/ friend/ random stranger to go and rescue them is both ridiculous and horribly one sided. There have been a variety of cases where males have been imprisoned and wives/friends/sisters etc. had to rescue them. Hell not 10 minutes ago, I just did a main quest in Skyrim where that was the whole objective, to free one of the Grey Manes from a Thalmor prison. In Fallout New Vegas, If you're aiming to be a paradigm of goodness, you can choose to rescue Benny before he's crucified. Almost every fecking war game/ film has had a male character imprisoned and his fellow soldiers would have to rescue them.
The fighting *^&$# toy is another idiotic and one sided comment, which is in regards to buxom characters such as Lara Croft, Tifa Lockheart, Chun-Li, Meryl Silverburgh and so on and so forth. Apparently it's sexist to have women who are good looking fighting. Of course we've never EVER seen a good looking man fighting in a game. Ryu from Street Fighter definitely isn't meant to be good looking, either is John Marston, Cloud from Final Fantasy, Nathan Drake, Marcus Fenix, Cole McGrath, Alex Mason... The list goes on and on with regards to both sides have good looking lead characters. If it's sexism to have good looking females, what is it for having good looking males too?
The sexy sidekick is the third opinion which discusses how women in video games are also used simply to be good looking sidekicks. As with every other point this video makes, there is a similar character who is male. Take for example, Saints Row 3, a game I recently reviewed here on the Blarg, there is pretty much an equal amount of sidekicks of both genders, some of them good looking on both sides, others not so good looking. In Skyrim you can have a big muscelly male nord running around with a warhammer, in Metal Gear Solid 4 there's Raiden and depending on your perspective there's Dante & Nero in Devil May Cry 4.
The Sexy Villaness is yet another idea. Of course, it's oh so sexist to have a woman who's good looking playing a villain, oh the humanity! Of course we've never EVER had a good looking male villain. Let's just ignore people like Liquid Snake, Sephiroth, Akuma, Anakin Skywalker (Before he gets burnt to shit) Colnel Volgin. Of course it would be sexism to have only sexy women playing villanesses etc. However like everything else to do with Sarkeesians arguments, there are also males.
Do I really need to expand further with this argument and prove how her saying having women as background decoration is also a load of bullshit and not sexism. Here are just some examples though yet again of men simply existing in the background and not really doing anything but chiming in every now and again. Otacon from Metal Gear Solid, Snow Villiers in Final Fantasy XIII-2, Zeke from Infamous.

So in conclusion, I think that this argument that there is sexism from video game players is spot on, however the idea that there is sexism in the industry is just ridiculous and in know way would you ever need $6000 let alone $150000+. I just expressed my opinion and if I pay (Just an example not an actual figure) 30 euro per month for my broadband, and wrote this in about half an hour- 45 mins, I'd only have to pay 20-40 cent. Even if I wanted to make a video, I wouldn't need to spend $6000 on a camera and editing software. So with that I'd like to end by saying how Anita Sarkeesian is in an idiotic fool who needs to look at both sides of arguments before she demonises one.

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Skyrim: Dawnguard First Impressions (Review Part 1)

So I didn't expect that I would have to do a two part review for Dawnguard, the first downloadable content for Skyrim, it's because the whole DLC is so big that it would require a two part review. Not that I haven't completed Dawnguard its just that the game offers two choices to the player and based on those choices the game offers completely different campaigns. And since I have completed one of them on my legitimate character I feel that I have only completed fifty percent of the DLC. My second part of the review will consist of the other choice. 

The story of Dawnguard begins with the return of the Volikhar Clan and its vampire lord Harkon, who aims to end vampires fear of the sun. Harkon wants to use the power of the Elder Scrolls to achieve his aims while the return of an ancient order named Dawnguard vows to stop them. The Dragonborn has the option to join the Volikhar or the Dawnguard. Due to keeping my characters heroic awe and the fact that I love being a Werewolf I joined the Dawnguard and renamed my character Van Helsing (lol joking).

The adventure begins by talking with any guard in any village around Skyrim, they will tell you about Dawnguard Castle and where its located. But it truly begins when the Dawnguard leader, Isran, asks you to raid an ancient Vampire artefact when done you will meet Serana who is carrying an Elder Scroll. She is the daughter of Harkon and will ask you to return her to Castle Volikhar. From that point on you'll have to make a decision. Joining the Dawnguard will give you no real special abilities but will give you access to Castle Dawnguard and all its armour and weapons. One special weapon is the Crossbow the most notable of the latest selection of weapons in Dawnguard. It's a pretty powerful weapon more powerful then my usual Ebony Bow which does thirty odd damage, the Enhanced Crossbow which you get relatively early in the game is about forty odd damage. So a nice addition to all the bowmen out there. It's apparently slow at reloading but I never experienced a delay in the action as I have a good enough range level to reload faster. I found it immensely handy as the bow itself takes less of the players screen space and is far easier for targeting enemies with accuracy. The Dawnguard armour is pretty nice looking ranging from heavy to light respectively. 

Overall the whole vibe Dawnguard gives is a lot similar to the movie Van Helsing, a gothic/medieval approach on the whole vampires vs mortals. Its pretty neat approach but doesn't get ahead of itself like a lot of these type of movies would. What I mean by this is that these movies usually go over the top with its vampires but Skyrim keeps to its own innovations which keeps to their lore. They make a nice addition with these vampire lords but there are not that many of them as you will see when playing.The Dawnguard are also not classic cliché vampire hunters, they don't use garlic, holy water, holy relics to kill vampires. They simply use the classic form of combat to kill vampires which is crossbows, swords and war hammer that add a special damage towards vampires. In total the aesthetic of Dawnguard is very tasteful and distinctive. 

New environments are also present in Dawnguard and are particularly spectacular however discussing them will reveal spoilers so unfortunately I'd rather not discuss it. All I will say is that they're big, pretty freaking big. 

The quest line I chose was really big. I think it was bigger than the main quest line in Skyrim without the side quests, its hard to tell but it took several hours to do. It stretched out quite well and was paced to a sustainable rate, the story twisted and turned in different directions to keep the interest level high and to maintain it at that level. What I found really admirable was just when I thought the game couldn't introduce more characters into the plot, it did. And quite interestingly so, you see the game becomes slightly bigger than just the vampires vs mortals war towards the end and awesomely I learned something about the world of Skyrim and how a certain race came to be. But you'll have to play the game yourself to find out what. As for characters yes, some of them were interesting but some of them became a blur as they re-used voice actors once again and it was hard to distinguish between them apart from using their names.The character Serena appealed to me because she stuck around enough for me to get to know her story, not only that she was also tolerable to have as a companion which I found was difficult to adjust to considering I never like having any followers in any RPG. I kept her around because she was pretty important to the story and she actually contributed to the narrative when I entered new environments. She was almost like a tour guide for the DLC and made adventuring around Skyrim pretty fun. As for Isran and the rest of the Dawnguard they did their job in terms of setting up the story and advancing it, but they didn't do a lot. What I mean by this was that their characters were not explored at all and even Isran's was pretty basic; he was a Vigilant of Stendarr but unhappy with the order he re-established the Dawnguard. Thankfully more characters get introduced to spice the story up. Overall the story was very satisfying and was built up really well, there weren't any blunders that I can think of and I learnt quite a bit of the world of the Elder Scrolls series.

The added gameplay perks that I enjoyed most was the addition of the Werewolf perks. To get these perks you simply eat people. Aweome right? Well yea if your a Werewolf not so much if you stupidly got rid of it. You see you might as well become a Werewolf if you choose the Dawnguard because you might as well enjoy the games added perks of becoming one. By becoming a Werewolf you get to join in the ancient battle of Werewolves vs Vampires. Though I'm not really sure who came up with this mash (do not say Stepheine Meyer) but it sure is an awesome one. Check out the Werewolf skill tree below; 

Mind you the rest of the Dawnguard aren't Werewolves sadly, but they never said you can't be one and nor did they say they will hunt them. Its just vampires they hate. 

So overall the DLC is just stunning its long enough to be worth 1600 Microsoft Points and its efficient enough to call it a worthy add on for Skyrim. But lets be honest, we'd all take any excuse to go back to playing Skyrim and I mean any. 

8.9/10

"Long enough, awesome enough and bloody enough to be worth 1600 Microsoft Points. Nuff said..."

My next part will focus on the Volikhar choice in the quest line and will be shorter....hopefully.

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Company of Heroes 2: Forgotten Sacrifice Trailer

It's easy to say that Company of Heroes is one of the best strategy games of all time. With its destructible environment and cover based gameplay, Company of Heroes couldn't have been more cutting edge when it was released in 2006. Now six years and several expansions later, Company of Heroes 2 has finally been announced. With the previous games focusing on the western front of WW2, it was easy to see that Company of Heroes 2 would focus on the eastern front, which was clearly the most devastating of the war. This game will focus on Operation Barbarossa and the Battle of Berlin but hopefully they'll deliver the battle of Stalingrad too. The game will use the new Essence 3 engine which will feature "true sight" which means the player sees what the units see. 

I think that Company of Heroes is a far superior series than any other which is set in WW2. Relic make sick games, and I cant see them stopping any time soon. Check out the trailer here, its as epic as it is educational; 

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Saint Row 3 Review

Saints Row The Third Review

(The following review is NSFW)

"Saints Row: The Third" is a delightfully humourous yet perfectly violent open world game from the gents over at Volition inc. You are the head of the famous gang known as "The Saints" and their meteoric rise to power in the town of Steelport by doing a variety of wacky missions such as hopping onto a dune buggy, lighting yourself on fire and crashing into other cars. The mission also features a variety of other gang related mini games such as taking out rival gangs each with their own unique units, hiring prostitutes and beating people to death with a variety of weapons such as a 6 foot dildo or ripping them apart with a wind cannon.

Soviet giant Oleg is one of the many very colourful members of the cast in this game

Gameplay

Saints Row: The Third has a long campaign filled with a wacky script, which even features a cameo from actor extraordinaire "Burt Reynolds" (Deliverance, Dukes of Hazard, The Longest Yard) as the mayor of Steelport. This game had me genuinely laughing out loud and not just for the crude parts of it's humour as the game can be downright witty. In this game, you rob a bank...vault by tearing it from the bank using a helicopter, cause it to rain sports card, cocaine, cash and sex dolls over Steelport and smash through a planes front window and fly out the other side unharmed... And that's just the first mission. The variety of games, weapons and vehicles and cheap DLC creates a very long series of post-story gameplay. There's a great variety to these mini-games whether they be insurance fraud, Trying to blow up as much shit as possible or even money laundering the local business's in Steelport. Customization also plays a large part in Saints Row 3 with a variety of hairstyles, clothes and costumes to wear ranging from Formal attire to fancy dress to bondage. Cars, bikes trucks etc. are also customizable to the extent where you can improve a cars speed, breaking ability, health etc. and change it's colours. I personally love my own mini scooter which is set to play only Satisfaction by Benny Bennassi. You obviously can customize your characters body as well making them either very fat, muscly or even a deformed zombie character.

Music and Graphics

Saints Row: The Third boasts an amazingly varied soundtrack. Varying from classic power ballads such as "I Need a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler, to Bach's Cantata to DeadMaus and if like me, you don't care for certain genres or particular songs, you can customize what you want. For me, it's nearly entirely a mixture of punk and rock music from artists like Dracula From Houston, Tim and Eric and Motley Crue. The mixture of music perfectly fits into the mood of the missions, hell it even made Kanyé West tolerable during one of the missions. The graphics are a more cartoony style but not soon cartoony that it would be like Borderlands, It's just the right amount. Regardless, it left me very impressed. 

Yup, I wasn't lieing about that 6 foot dildo

In Conclusion: 

 I've heard a lot of people compare this to GTA IV, which is only natural seeing as they are similar games, however I would pick Saints Row over Grand Theft Auto any day. Saints Row I felt was just more entertaining as a whole when compared to GTA. A lot of people critiqued this game saying how it wasn't like GTA. If you want a game like GTA, you should buy GTA. However this game is essentially a piss take of what GTA is. Besides that, I was enjoying every minute of the game and still am to this day. I highly recommend this game to anyone as there's very little to complain about in it despite the occasional glitching through walls but Volition inc have even employed a fail safe to auto re-spawn you in most cases. The only genuine problem that I could find with this game is the repetitiveness of some missions but this is still but a minor fault with an otherwise near-perfect game. I highly recommend this game to anyone which is why i'm giving this games a 

9.5/10

Well done to Volition Inc, I'm eagerly awaiting Saints Row 4

  

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Meet The Pyro is Finally Here! (Team Fortress 2)

May the hilarity continue....

This is definitely my favourite out of all of them;

  

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Skyrim: Dawnguard DLC is up and ready to play!

Good morning folks, today we are graced with the presence of Dawnguard the first DLC for the Elder Scrols V: Skyrim. So for many Skyrim fans, like myself, the least thing to say is that we're fucking pumped. I have literally learned nothing from this DLC as I wanna discover myself what its all about. The only thing I have seen is the trailer which looks ridiculously impressive which you can see here; 

Looks crazy cool, hell I'd download it just for the horse combat and the crossbows, well I'm gonna go off and play this ridiculously cool game with this ridiculously cool downloadable content. Expect a review shortly.
P.S. I suggest you do the same.....

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Bad News if you Pre-Ordered ME3 at Game

I have just learned that EA have decided to pull all of their future releases from being sold in the Retailer Game, in the UK and Ireland until further notice. Apparently, EA don't trust that they would receive the correct funds from each sale, given Game's current financial situation. (Which I wasn't aware was bad.)

                                                               The Bottom Line ?

Ok, the Bottom Line is that if you have pre-ordered ME3 at Game, your pre-order has been cancelled and you will be refunded with store credit. This decision is all down to EA choosing not to send any copies of Mass Effect 3 to Game.

Unfortunatley, this means that I will have to look elsewhere if I want to get it on release day. This especially sucks due to the fact it was the Collectors Edition I had ordered.


But anyway, just giving you a heads up.

More information about this can be found at the following link: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/29/ea-pulling-mass-effect-3-from-game/

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Rockstar Announce GTA V

Earlier on today, Rockstar officially announced Grand Theft Auto five on their official website.

And that's about all we know. If you go to their site they just have the picture shown above with the date of November 2nd underneath. Safe to assume that's when we'll get our first trailer.

So yeah ! New GTA ! Mr. J will be pleased.

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