Ben-DutkaDon't forget Thanksgiving was late this year; hope you've got a jump on your shopping!
Sony was really reaching with that Vita ad
I don't mean to imply that the sexy Vita commercial was below Sony but…it kinda was.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. Sex sells and always will. It's also not really offensive as far as I can tell (although I'm sure someone somewhere is screaming bloody murder), so it's not the content I question. It's the mere fact that Sony used it at all. To me, when you publish a commercial like that, it's almost like you're trying to cover something up. It's like the Hooters girls covering up the fact that the food is basically God-awful. It annoys me because the Vita is a great little machine – I've said that numerous times – and such an adolescent ad should be unnecessary.
If the system had any games, maybe Sony could've focused on that . However, they've said several times that they don't intend to focus on AAA exclusives for the unit, and that'll kill it plenty fast. How long can a gaming-centric device subsist on games you can play on other platforms (more importantly, games you can play on your living room TV)? It needed to find its niche; it needed more powerful exclusives like Uncharted: Golden Abyss , Gravity Rush , and Tearaway . And as far as many are concerned, Remote Play is a bust. All that silly ad tells me is that you've really got nothing to crow about concerning the Vita.
We don't care about your RPG, Square Enix
Well, those who know you don't care.
They've said over and over how shocked they were at the success of Bravely Default (which immediately tells you how little they understand). But as I predicted at the time, there's no evidence of that revelation in their future products. Square Enix says they're working on a new console RPG but what assurance do I have that it's even an RPG? They seem to think Final Fantasy XV is an RPG and I still think that's up for debate. Either way, I seriously doubt this company ever actually learns anything; they've published some great games lately but the glory days of Squaresoft are long gone.
Maybe they should just try a different genre, or something. It's too embarrassing for them to keep following the downward spiral in the realm of high-budget role-playing.
Personal gaming update
Far Cry 4 is another great game for the holiday season but I won't be finishing it. My plate is already full and I've never been a huge Far Cry fan, anyway. Between Assassin's Creed Unity , Dragon Age: Inquisition and Grand Theft Auto V PS4, I've got enough to last me through the spring. I'll be sidetracked by the likes of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in February, too. No doubt about that. Not much coming out in December so I might finally get a chance to breathe. 🙂
One thing I've noticed about Unity is that money is a lot harder to come by as opposed to previous entries. It's also interesting that pretty much the only way to earn enough skill points is by completing the optional objectives in the story missions. These are relatively small changes that have made the game much more challenging and immersive, as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah, that Vita ad wasn't so much offensive as it was embarrassingly bad. I love Sony, but I don't know what they were thinking with that.
Personally, I'm debating whether to pick up the season passes for 'Tales from the Borderlands' and 'Game of Thrones' (on Tuesday) immediately or if I should wait. Their last few games went on sale within a few months of release, and I don't really want to take my focus away from 'Inquisition.' But Telltale has quickly earned my admiration, becoming one of my favorite developers, so I want to support them.
"embarrassingly bad" is the way to describe it. Add "dumb" to that and we have a full desciption.
I generally don't mind innuendo laden ads if they're funny and clever, but this one was neither.
I'm still waiting until exams are over to pick up DA:I (2 weeks woo!) but in the mean time I'm enjoying bits of FC4 when I can, and still want to check out the last map pack for BF4.
Inquisition seems to work well with remote play. I'm playing that but am increasingly let down. It is pretty empty actually as they tried to skyrimize it and the fact that for the story there's a huge problem and now you have forever to get cats out of trees to build a team just smacks of lazy Mass Effectness. We need a traditional bell curve epic story here. Bioware is losing it.
So it isn't the life grabbing RPG I thought; time to look forward to Witcher 3.
I read somewhere from a professional reviewer that the first 20 hours feels like a grind before it gets good. Now I don't feel that. I think that guy must be nuts.
I'm within the first twenty hours and I think it's great.
It is great, it's just… different and kind of more like other games. I'm glad you like it Temjin. I'll keep on playing for sure cuz I love my character (the side cast isn't as good this time though). It has managed to reignite my interest in finishing Kingdoms of Amalur and Dragon's Dogma.
Brings my hopes down for the game a little hearing that 🙁
Shoulda used Dead Or Alive for the Vita promo. It would have been much jigglier of an advertisement.
So true Ben, so true.
Was kidding about the FC4 thing, the game is literally FC3 with a few extra things. Graphically its very nice though. And since FC3 was amazing, that can only mean FC4 is just as amazing, with extras. Story is definitely bleak sometimes though.
Finally got around to playing Alien Isolation and its….Well I don't like it. I was sooooooo bored the entire time. Had to play Evil Within to not feel so tired and bored. If there was more than one alien I'm sure I would have enjoyed it much more since the first Alien movie I saw (as a tiny kid) was Aliens. You know, with hundreds of them. I can see why people love it though, and that includes my mom as well.
Gaming this week was just Evil Within and a little bit of Dragon Age and as I mentioned, Alien Isolation. One thing I adore about Evil Within is the fact that after beating it once, the story feels so much more…sensible. Its like playing Bioshock Infinite after beating it, everything that happens just makes so much sense.
Got the dynamic theme for the Order on my ps4. The music that plays is…magical. The game is going to be something else, in a good way.
In non-gaming news, the new Star Wars…Turns out Force Unleashed was cannon I guess. According to the "nice" people in the comment section of the trailer, the clone factories were destroyed and a bunch of other things I had no idea about.
Course, with Star Wars and Marvel being apart of Disney, it makes me wonder about all of the possibilities for KH3. Darth Vader vs Sephiroth? Wolverine vs Vincent? Could be cool.
And Jurassic World looks awesome. Love the idea of a new bio-genetic super dinosaur. Maybe the accompanying video game will be open world? If there is it all anyway. Next year continues to become even more epic.
Future KH games could be awesome for the reasons you mentioned. It could be so expansive it would be hard for it to fail.
Jurassic World looks amazing. I'm not sold on the cast yet. I love Chris Pratt but I was looking to see some of the original cast return in main roles alongside a new cast. But aside from that it's throwback JP all the way by the looks of it.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 11/29/2014 11:20:43 PM
If a Marvel character dares set foot in Kingdom Hearts I will disown the series. It would just be so wrong. It's bad enough that KH still has Final Fantasy characters plotting about aimlessly – I have never understood why they haven't set up FF worlds. How great would it be to take part in scenarios from the games like the Garden Battle in FF8 or stopping Ultros in the Opera house of FF6. It has so much potential and it would be an easy fix to the biggest problem of KH, with its aimless FF characters.
FF characters are from Hollow Bastion or rather, Radiant Garden. I'm fine with it. KH doesn't lend itself well to having Sephy kill Aerith all over again and again.
I really don't care about anything SE puts out right now aside from KH. I am in no hurry to buy any of their games.
The whole Vita thing is news to me. I don't think I ever seen the commercial everyone is talking about. I typically pass over anything Vita related in the news because I don't have one so it all went right over my head.
PGU: I'm still playing CoD. Mainly mp. This is the first CoD I didn't play the campaign through to completion before jumping online. I would like to finish it though as it is pretty good. Great game all around.
Started GTAV. Well I gotta say I was pretty mad when I went to finally play it night before Thanksgiving (after having waited a couple hours for it to download) only to find out I had to Install it after starting the game. It took longer than it did to download all 52 gb, almost 12 hours. That's kind of ridiculous now days. Although the classic GTAV gameplay is fun this game is lacking something and I can't quite put my finger on it. It's somewhere in the depth and story telling that just bothers me. It's deep and there's a lot to do but to me it's pointless rather not needed. Like going to the gun range to increase your shooting. Well that's cool but I can't tell the difference between characters one having a low shooting score and the other almost maxed. And I can't stand Lamar. This game drops more N words and F bombs than anything I've ever heard. In the context of things I get it but the fact that KZ was scrutinized over its language has me scratching my head. It's borderline out of control in GTA. I'd like to mute it sometimes. And personally the graphics are meh. While the world looks good and detailed the characters are flat and have little definition on top of moving very awkwardly. Anyways its classic GTA, but it is what I thought it would be…
I downloaded Shadow of Mordor but I'm gonna hold off on starting it until I finish GTA. I'd like to start it now but I purchased both of them in a week of each other and I have a problem of putting games on hold for others and not finishing them later. But I couldn't pass on SoM for 30 bucks on PSN black Friday deal.
I also would like to add that I have downloaded half of my PS4 library. This is kind of an unlikely event considering my strong feelings towards digital downloads in the past. But I've been converted. However I will always support hard copies for the reasons of broadband availability, broadband speeds and collections.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 11/29/2014 11:42:43 PM
Digital isn't so bad. Sure there's a long download if you decide to play the game after it's been deleted but it's not like going physical saves a person space like it used to. These days, even physical games dump the WHOLE disc on your HDD in order to play it.
I'm happy I got Drive Club digital. I can power that sucker on and drive some races and then quit out and hop right into Dragon Age without having to get up and change discs.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 11/30/2014 1:16:16 AM
That's partly why I started downloading my games was that discs don't free up space anymore.
And yes it's very simple to switch between games, apps, movies you name it…
I am loving DA:I so much! The characters are so great.
aye. it is. I've encountered a number of bugs, one of which forced me to restart the game, but it's still great stuff.
I'm not feeling these characters the way I did in DAO and DAII, I hope there are more to meet. Bull is really cool, but I want some women I can be interested in that aren't manly or insane.
I just got to lv 13 and can now use a few more health potions, but that also means I haven't gotten the lockpicking yet.
I still have yet to kill a dragon and, even though I'm still enjoying it, I've encountered a couple little bugs.
First a particular character's dialogue would stall until I skipped with square, I might have lost a couple lines, and once wouldn't advance for so long I was just about to close the application.
Then my radial menu stopped working, but thankfully it went back to normal after restarting.
The ad was bad taste for Sony and yea, it only hides the fact the platform doesn't push any one game particularly hard because very few new games on the platform are worth writing home about.
Personally, I still really value my Vita and I do play it on frequent occasion. I just hate the feeling of wasted potential and the loss of strong leadership by Sony. It's a great product that's been kicked to the sidelines by it's parent.
I do really value remote play and it does work well with most games I've tried. Yet it has it's flaws and annoyances. It's very picky with routers and wireless connections and I can't imagine the average user being able to figure it out well enough to get value from it.
PGU: I just had to grab Rayman Legends for Vita for $13.50. The sale is still on for those who want. yes, I've played it already on PS4 but I'd love to play it again on my handheld. I've also noticed the game incorporates the Wii U style touch elements the PS4 doesn't have. So far I have to say I don't really care for those elements and I think I'd rather have it the PS4 way though. It's more frustrating with the touch mechanic where I can't control "Slappy" or whatever that frogs name is. Instead I just cut ropes and adjust ledges while he does the platforming in a pre-programmed way. It's a wonderful platformer and one of the best I've ever played.
I finished Sonic IV Ep. 2. It's a great Sonic game. It has some annoying quirks like most every Sonic has and I would've preferred the airplane stuff to be cut out, but other than that it's aces.
I've also been playing Drive Club. The new DLC Tour packs are great. The game looks so gorgeous. It really does scratch that arcade racing itch I expect to have early on with every new console generation, especially seeing that Ridge Racer has been a no show this gen.
Been playing Dragon Age Inquisition. The game has made a strong impression on me, particularly last night. From what I'm seeing and feeling it's definitely GotY PS4 side. Not that I'm really qualified to say because I haven't played a whole lot of PS4 games this year but it just feels like a high water mark that few could compete with.
-yawns- I dont care about the vita so no ad well get me to buy it. Personally i cant wait to see square enix new console RPG. As long as its a new IP or something and that boring series that is final fantasy.
The commercial doesn't seem bad or odd to me, it's obvious she doesn't mean what she's innuendoing. It's actually a lot like the newest Viagra commercial which is direct, same accent, similar girl.
What makes me sick is the Target?/Kohls?/Somebodys commercial where men swing their balls around in boxers and it makes jingle bell noises. How could that be aired every christmas?
The ad wasn't suppose to be targeted like that. It's obvious, just seeing the ad commercial, u think one word sex. That's why it was the wrong approach with that.
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 11/30/2014 10:52:20 AM
I haven't seen said vita ad…
I couldn't agree more about Square. What's the point of rebooting the series when it's downfall was the failure to deliver the proper experience? It wasn't like people were getting sick of it. People got sick of the IP losing focus of what matters to its fans. It's stupid.
PGU: FINALLY done with Dark Souls 2. Totalled 112hrs of my life and loved most of it. Ordered DAI which should be here soon! GTAV, FarCry 4, and assassin's creed unity are on the list of purchases this week! Going to get busy! I yeah, I've given away my G27 to my buddy's son to advance his GT6 addiction. I can't believe how good he was with a freaking controller! I'm sure he'll love the G27.
yeah i think the vita will have a hard life. as for SE idk about this RPG when you have a company that is quite confused about what genres are and aren't then you don't really know what to expect half the time. and well as for most of the games that came out this month they are all pritty good minus a couple which we won't dicuss any further. but i've gone onto rachet 2 as of the last few days i've beaten it once got all the weapons on the 1st run through and working on the mega to ultra weapons now.and managed to get to the last amour i wish you all a good december as for me i'm on holiday for atleast the next month as i have finished uni and my degree now(almost waiting for marks)
happy gaming