Why Borderlands might just be the greatest new IP last generation.

So there is a lot of debate over the greatest IP to come out of this last generation, and there are a lot of big contenders for this title too.  But alas only one game/franchise can really get the title.  So who gets it, and more importantly why do they get it?  With contenders such as Gears of War, Resistance, Dead Island, Dead Space, Bioshock, Just Dance, Skylanders, Mass Effect, Saints Row, Left 4 Dead, and Assassians Creed, the winner has a lot to overcome.  However I feel that the winner has to be something that has showed us that games are meant to be fun, and that we should expect nothing less than that.  That is why I believe that the Borderlands franchise gets the title.  It was not an easy decision though, and Borderlands had to work for it, but with a little bit of love, Gearbox showed us that loot fests are still in style.

That's right, you know you love it!

Okay, let me be honest here for a minute.  I didn't jump on the Borderlands buss right away.  Yea, when we first heard of the game I thought that a shoot and loot game was a pretty cool idea, especially one with as many different and unique guns as Borderlands was boasting, but it more or less flew under my radar.  That was until about a year after it came out when I was visiting some family and we were at GameStop and the game of the year edition was 50% off.  I decided that for $20 it was at least worth a shot, especially since I got all 4 DLCs with it.  Well that $20 was probably one of the smartest $20 that I've ever spent.  The first Borderlands just completely blew my mind with how fast paced, fun, and hysterical the gameplay was, and Borderlands 2 did it all over again to the point where I own three copies of the second.  There are only 7 other games that I own multiple copies of: KotOR, KotOR 2, SW: Battlefront, SW: Battlefront 2, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3.  If that doesn't tell you something, then I'm not sure what will.

So, now that I've got that cleared up, one of the things that I really appreciate about the games is the art and graphics, and normally I'm not really one to care about graphics.  It just all works, form the the psuedo cell shaded graphics to the signs that proudly say "Safty Fist", it all really just adds to the feel of the game, and helps to expand the setting with all of the minor details, which I feel that some larger games either don't do or lose focus of.  And that's not to mention the splash introductions they do for all of the characters and people you meet in the game, most of which have some sort of funny little quip about the character or boss monster that is actually relevant to either the character themselves, or where you are in the story.  Every setting in the game has a unique feel to it, I never once found myself asking "Okay, what area am I in again?"  Finally, Gearbox has really gone all out on even the minor visual easter eggs.  Whether it be the double rainbow in Borderlands 2, to the claptrap figurine in Moxxi's Red Light, or even the QR codes hidden in both games, Borderlands has an exceptional appreciation and attention for all of the little things that make playing them that much more memorable.

No one disagrees....right?

In addition to the art, I love the gameplay.  It's fast, it's dynamic, and most importantly it's fun.  Borderlands has been able to successfully take elements of both RPG's and FPS's and combine them into one game.  Bungie presented this idea with Halo 2 called "30 seconds of fun".  The idea of it is that if you can nail 30 seconds on continuous, good, fast paced fun, you can keep your audience in tow for 10 minutes of "boring" game play and they won't even realize it, and Borderlands pulls this off perfectly.  I consistently find myself presented with this sort of risk vs reward system, where the more I stick my neck out in the middle of a fight, the greater my reward in fun is.  Borderlands has hit the nail on the head in this department.  The character customization is just phenomenal, in both aesthetics and in game play terms too.  If I want Gaige to play the support role I can do it, if I want Maya to be an unholy death machine, I can do it, if I want Axton to drop a turret or two and then run in shotguns blazing, I can do it.  The number of play styles is endless.

One of the things that I will always remember about the first Borderlands is turning the game on and hearing "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" after Marcus's speech and just starting to jam out.  Borderlands 2 was the exact same way, but just sub in "Short Change Hero".  They were some of the most memorable openings that I have ever experienced.  Needless to say I was absolutely in love with the rest of it.  And the subtle BGM isn't overpowering either.  Every BGM track fits every area, every scene just right, they don't over do it to distract from the gameplay, but they don't under play it so you notice a distinct lack, it's just right.  In addition to that all of the background noises from not only the supporting cast, but also the PC's themselves are perfectly timed, (more or less) in good taste, and will always keep you smiling.  And it's not just the things in game either,  the fan-made songs are awesome too, like this one by The Escapists Miracle of Sound.  Seriously, listen to it, it's awesome.

Finally, the last thing that really makes Borderlands 2 truly surpass almost every other new IP is the fanbase.  Seriously, it's fanbase is diehard and awesome.  From all of the cosplayers, musicians, artists, fan-fic writers, and yes, even the shippers.  It's a cultural revolution, and it's not showing signs of stopping.  After having made many new friends through my relationship with Borderlands I know first hand that the fan base is large, and the fan base is diehard.  It's not to say that other games don't have these kinds of devout and loyal fan bases, it's just that Borderlands is not only loyal, but it's large, growing, and strong.  And to add to it, Gearbox is ever aware of their fans, and in turn, they have made their game aware of it.  Through the fans the game truly comes to life, both while playing and not.

While we might not be seeing a new Borderlands for a while, I think that I have provided enough evidence to convince even the most stubborn of people to believe that Borderlands is not only the best, but also one of a kind.  Well, with that, I'm hoping to start getting more posts done with a bit more frequency, so here's to hoping  Till next time!

And the Winner is...

So as anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows last week was E3.  And this years E3 was big, really big.      This is due, in no small part, to both Sony and Microsoft announcing their new consoles earlier this year.  While Microsoft laid their cards for the Xbox One on the table right out of the gate, Sony opted to wait until E3 to spill the beans on the PS4.  And what a reveal the PS4 had.  Announcing no restrictions on used games, no disputes over ownership, and no requirements that game developers have to have a publisher to put a game on their console.  Needless to say a lot of this was targeted at Microsoft's announcement on their Xbox One which allows a publisher to permit or deny used sales, is not very clear on who owns the game post sale, and requires that developers have a publisher to put a game on their console, including the team at Oddworld Inhabitants, one of the companies that help put the Xbox on the map.  Though through all of this people are still looking for the "Winner of E3", like it's some sort of game or something.  And though I may not agree with the practice (as I have discussed before) as each console has it's own merits.  But the tradition remains, and I feel that it needs to be honored.  So here we are, time to analyze each consoles E3 showing, including PC, and determine a winner, because the public demands it.

Before we begin I would like to clarify a couple of things on the rules for this little showdown.  We are going to primarily focus on the games that were displayed here, and less on the technology and business practices of some of the companies that make them.  But don't be offended if I tend to leave out a lot of sports games, and I sure you all know how I feel about those.

So lets get this chicken fight started then.  In no particular order lets start off with the Xbox One.  A couple of exclusives look pretty decent for this console, primarily Sunset Overdrive and Killer Instinct, and the fact that both FFXV and KH3 are going to appear on the Xbox One really help it add guns to it's fight.  Now a big game that had a lot of people talking was Ryse: Son of Rome.  Personally I don't see Ryse as turning into a big title, it feels like it will go the way of Kameo with moderate gameplay and an easily forgettable experience.  Forza 5 on the other hand, while it looks good, is becoming something of an all too familiar experience.  It seems as if we get one every two to three years and the series never really progresses as nicely as we would like besides better graphics and a couple of new features, like the Drivatar, though that is a really good idea.  Finally we also saw an exclusive sneak peak at Halo 5, and with that Bonnie Ross proudly proclaiming 60 frames per second as if she was going to win a Nobel Prize.

OMG 60 FRAMES PER SECOND GAIZ!!

Next up, the WiiU.  Now Nintendo tends to be on the back burner at every years E3 with not really too much to talk about besides a few cool 3rd party exclusives (Bayonetta 2 this year), and the inevitable Mario or Zelda title.  Now while Bayonetta 2 looks like a great game, and probably will be a great game, it was most definitely not Nintendo's biggest announcement this year.  That came in the form of Super Smash Bros., the fourth installment in Nintendo's award winning battle royal battle game, and one of my personal favorites that Nintendo owns.  Other big things that we're announced was Pikmin 3, which looks interesting, especially since we haven't seen a Pikmin game since the Game Cube.  Also a Wind Waker remake, which is making me want a WiiU, a new Mario Kart, New Super Luigi U (at least he's getting another game for himself), a new game focusing on Wario, and finally a new Donkey Kong country.  Not a bad lineup.

On to the PS4.  SO one fo the biggest titles that ultimately caught my attention was Killzone: Shadow Fall.  I personally do not own a PS3, so I missed out on Killzone 2 and 3, but I absolutely loved the first entry in the series.  Games like The Order: 1886 and Driveclub will also be extremely heavy hitters in this next generation, especially with the later of the two being free to PS+ members on launch, plus the whole steampunk feel of The Order really makes me interested.  Knack looks like a really cool idea, but reminds me again that it could very easily go the way of Kameo very quickly.  Though only time will tell if that is the case or not.  Finally we come to Infamous: Second Son.  Now while this game looks good, I've never been really big on the Infamous series so I can't say that I'm super excited for it.

Seriously, this game will be amazing.  And it's made by SCE Santa Monica.

PC boasts a small number of games, but we see two large releases: Total War: Rome II and Company of Heroes 2.  Both games predecessors have seen incredible success, and I'm going to say now that they will see much more.  PC also has the advantage of Titanfall, which is also on both 360 and Xbox One, but I have a feeling that PC will trump both consoles the same way that Skyrim did last November.  Though PC never really has a huge showing at E3 becasue a lot of its major games come from Indie developers, MOBAs, and MMOs.

Though it's a potentially unpopular vote, I'm going to have to give this year to the WiiU.  We're getting a truckload of first party games, and Nintendo always has great first party games, a remake of Wind Waker, possibly one of the most fun Zelda games ever made, and a new Pikmin.  I mean this really was an easy call. Plus they didn't get involved in the war that Microsoft and Sony did over their next gen console.  It was business as usual for Nintendo, and I applaud them.  But only time will tell if I'm right.  See ya next time.

Bask in the glory of your champion.

Another Generation of Garbage

Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard all about Microsoft's new next gen console, the Xbox One.  All personal opinions aside, the Xbox One looks to be a very powerful console that hopes to compete with PC's, Blu-Ray players, web boxes, and your TV in the next generation.  But is all of that really necessary?  And after what Microsoft gave us two weeks ago in their excuse for a console press conference what can we really expect from their next gen console?  Luckily I'm here to help crack this issue wide open and give you some strong predictions for what will happen both at E3 this week and before we see the Xbox One (Night Stand) before it hits shelves in November.

So, for those of you who joined in on the live feed for Microsoft's press conference you may have noticed a sever lack of one thing that every video game console needs, video games.  I mean the only thing we really saw was a nice 5 minute long commercial for the new Call of Duty: Ghosts.  That's it.  Nothing more.  And don't even try to bring up the EA Sports thing as an argument for us seeing a video game, because by now we've all filed them under the "not games, just pocket pickers" category.  And I know that games are announced, and already have trailers, but we saw nothing in the lines of gameplay.  And that is the key to selling a next generation console.

However a distinct lack of games are not my only vocal concerns about what is in store for us.  My biggest concerns is an isolation of games altogether in the next generation.  Clearly neither the PS4 or Xbox One are being targeted at games specifically, which is a funny thing for a VIDEO GAME CONSOLE.  I want to say that one more time.  The PS4 and Xbox One are VIDEO GAME CONSOLES.  Not home entertainment systems, not a big brother machine, not ET that can't go a day without talking to its mommy, and definitely not a cable box.  They're VIDEO GAME CONSOLES.  So why the hell are Microsoft and Sony trying to pass them off as more than that?  That is a serious mistake.  They need to refocus, understand who exactly will be the most likely to buy their console, and focus their marketing toward them.  Nintendo did that with the WiiU, and because of that, the WiiU was a huge success.

Microsoft and Sony however are not focusing on the games, even though Sony has claimed that "the PS3 is for video games".  This is the same garbage we heard when they announced the current generation, and its the same garbage their giving us now.  The only real change that will ever happen is when we, as consumers, those who hold the almighty dollar and decide the fate of the console, decide not to buy into their bullshit and  start buying only the console that offers us a video game experience that we want, not the TV experience we don't.  That is the only way that we come out ahead.

I will say, the one thing that I do like about the new generation is the ability to take direct screen shots and videos and add them to social media.  It allows people with little to no experience in doing this an option for sharing their gameplay experiences with the rest of the world without the use of expensive equipment.

But this week, I'm hopeful, even though it may be foolish.  I'm hopeful that Microsoft will get their heads out of their asses and actually give us what we want.  Hopeful that Sony has a piece of hardware to give us, and a game to play on it.  Hopeful that David Cage finally gets the quality of graphics that he dreams of so that we can put this whole emotion in games bullshit aside.  And finally, I'm hopeful that Square Enix won't announce four new games that we'll never see.

Hope this week turns some of this around, but don't hold your breathe.  See ya next time!

Pixelating Emotions

So first of all its been a while, I know.  But I'm hoping that I can leisurely keep up posting here through the future even though time has very easily gotten away from me.  A lot has changed in my life and this is something that I would really love to keep up because it allows me a creative release and a place to go into a deep discussions.  I cannot promise a weekly post, but I can promise more frequently than what I was doing previously.  So with that being said, lets get started.

So I really want to cover an issue that has been in and out of the spotlight pretty consistently for the past couple of years but has recently gained a considerable amount of ground.  This subject is none other than: Emotions and Video Games.  Now this subject can be quite a large mountain to tackle, especially when considering its entire scope.  So I really want to narrow it down and just talk about emotions portrayed in video games through the writing in the games.  However, just to hammer how large this subject is I would like to point out a couple of different topics and let you ponder them on your own, but you never know we might cover them later.  So outside of emotions portrayed through writing, video games deal with emotion through attachment to a players character (such as in an MMO), emotion through the artistic direction in the game, emotion through the a concept explored through both game play and story line (and this is different than what we will be talking about today).  As you can see there is a large number of ways games can possibly display emotions.

But as promised I want to look at a display of emotions through writing.  Now, this can be done in a couple of different ways, but at their cores, its all the same.  Emotion through writing is the actions, dialogue, and events of any character(s) in a game makes the player feel something other than an overwhelming sense of meh.  A great example of this is in Gears of War 2, oh yea, spoiler alert here (though that should be obvious), specifically the scene where Marcus and Dom are searching the prison camps to find Maria.  When Dom finally does find her we have a unique chance to experience something deeper than the usual tone of the game.  The way we are experiencing emotion through writing here is the setup from the rest of the game up to this point, and even earlier as well, from the books.  You see, throughout the game the writers hint at 2 very different things: 1) Maria is dead and Dom will find only despair at the end of his long 13 year search, or 2) Maria is alive, living with the Stranded, and a happy reunion awaits for them when he finds her, thus giving Dom hope for the future.  But instead neither one of these happens to be true, and yet both are true.  You see, Dom finds out that Maria is alive, and because of that he fights on only to find her broken, a mere husk of her former self.  Dom is distraught by this, and at the sight of her he realizes that he truly has lost his family.  So he decides that the only thing to do is to remember her as she was and end her suffering.  Now I'm NOT going to get into a discussion as to if this was right, but it really got to me as one of those times where I realized that even a game like Gears of War, has a heart deep down.

Seriously man, the feels.

Another well known example is when Aerith died in Final Fantasy VII.  I'm not going to go into detail with this, because I'm sure we all know what happened.  But, even more importantly, the backlash from the fans was astronomical.  I know people who have sworn off Final Fantasy completely after that, and that's just a start.  Numerous people felt betrayed when she died.  Killing off a main character like that was rarely done in such a big name title like that.

Negative emotions aren't the only thing that writing in games can make someone feel either, multiple games bring a wide range of other emotions to the table.  One of the happiest moments I ever felt was in Kingdom Hearts when, at the very end, Sora, Riku, and Kairi were briefly reunited before Riku and King Mickey had to seal Kingdom Hearts from the other side.  I mean, it was like, finally!!  Sora is reunited with his best friend again!!!  But as we all know nothing lasts forever, and yet again in Kingdom Hearts 2 we get to feel the same thing that we felt before, a overbearing sense of joy that Sora, and by extension, the player has been able to overcome everything in front of them, and prove that the power of friendship and love is nothing to trifle with, and that even the smallest amount of light can shine through the darkness.  And better yet, at the send of the second one we finally get what we were asking for: a happy ending at Destiny's Island.  Moments of pure elation are abundant in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Heart 2.  And all of them are done through writing.

At long last, a happy ending.

Now there is a second way for games to show emotion through writing, and that is a direct tie into the the characters themselves displaying emotion.  Okay, okay, I'll admit that this one should be obvious, but it is truly easy to overlook.  Most people don't think of the writing as displaying emotion this way because in games all we hear and realize as writing is the dialogue, but this couldn't be further from the truth.  In fact everything that happens is because of a writer.  Think of a movie as a visual book.  We only hear the dialogue of the book but we can see all of the events take place, we may miss out on some of the descriptors, like cool water, or searing pain, but we can take in more information faster this way.  Now lets extend that analogy to considering video games to be interactive movies (I know some people will argue about how this isn't the case, but that's not really the point here).  In a video game we experience everything that we do in the movie, except for the fact that games are usually much longer, and allow a player to play a direct part in the narrative, now if this is a main role or a supporting role depends on the game, but either way, we experience everything that is happening directly.

But what does this have to do with character emotion?  Well honestly the same way that emotions are portrayed in a book applies to a game, as a player we have to do a better job at interpreting these emotions, this is because they're not spelled out for us, but this does not mean that they're not there.  I mean, imagine if instead of playing God of War (the first one, not anything after, we don't need any rage-filled hate monsters here), you were to read God of War as a book instead.  You would not need to interpret Kratos' emotions through his dialogue or his animation in the game, instead you would have a direct look into his mind about what he is feeling.  For example, when Kratos gets impaled by Ares, we as players know that he is seemingly hopeless because he feels he has lost.  We understand this because we can interpret his reaction to this event.  However in a book we might see something like: "And the instant the pilar had impaled him, a wave of hoplessness washed over him as he came to realize that this could be the end of his quest."  As you can see, when directly told something, the emotions of how the character feels is much easier to convey than having to interpret them from their dialogue and actions.

A very powerful moment in a game often needs to be interpreted.

Now something else I would like to point out before I leave you for today is none of these four primary methods of conveying emotions should ever act independently in a game.  Can they, yes, should they, no.  To do so would be to rob the player of an essential part of the gaming experience, the unique element that only a game can allow a player to experience.  A true sense of immersion, and a true sense of experience is gained when developers use all of these tools in unison to create an experience, and not when they use one as a crutch that half heartily gets the point across.  Remember this the next time you play a game, and see if you can start to pick up on what the developers are doing, and then take time to compare it to other games.  You might just be surprised.  See ya next time!

Why you should be upset with the Entertainment Industry if you aren't already.

So three weeks ago we saw the release of The Expendables 2, which I have not seen and I do not plan seeing it.  But seeing as this is supposed to be somewhat of a big movie it would be an opportune time to express a few long standing thoughts of mine on the current state of the Entertainment Industry.  I'm not going to beat around the bush with this one either.  I'm not happy.  Not one bit.  And this is for a variety of reasons too, which wouldn't you know it, we're going to discuss here.  Oh and you might want to buckle in because were going to be covering a lot of ground here.

So as I stated earlier this whole deal really just started with The Expendables 2, but the problem stems much much deeper than that.  You see what is really the big thing to take away from the whole Expendables 2 thing is that with it Hollywood is essentially doing what the music industry did with their Supergroups, a nice a novel idea to bring a bunch of big names together in an effort of making something even more famous.  And while this worked in the music industry for a while it eventually fell apart because one thing can only have so much fame.  You see that is what The Expendables did.  They took just about every big name action star that they could get a hold of and put them into one movie, was it bad: no, was it good: no, it just kinda was, and now The Expendables 2 is rehashing what the music industry did getting out of the "Oh hey cool" and into the "Yea, we don't care."  Okay, okay I'm ranting here, but it needs to be said: Expendables 2 is what would amount to a quick cash grab.  The writing from the first one was so generic that you could have taken any movie that any of those actors have been in and write in a role for all of the other characters in the movie and you get The Expendables.  The writing is just that bad.

No, just no.

And speaking of the writing in The Expendables the book industry isn't exactly immune either.  You see over the past 6 to 7 years a few notable books have been taking heat from multiple sources.  yes of course I'm talking about Twilight, but we've all heard everything there is to hear about Twilight's one dimensional, at best characters.  So instead we take a look at a more recent book series, Fifty Shades of Grey.  For those of you who don't know Fifty Shades of Grey, FSG, is a book series about BDSM.  You see the issue here is where the books finds their roots.  The books were started off as a Twilight Fanfic, not to say there is anything that is wrong with fanfics, but there could easily be something wrong with a fanfic containing heavy sexual content based off of a series whose original target audience is 12-18 year old girls.  Now if that's not reason enough to hate these books then look at message.  As I said the whole series is pretty much about BDSM, and from what I understand in the later books straight out rape.  Part of it is the fact that the main character goes into a submissive state for the millionaire that she is willing to do anything he says.  Now is this what we want our society to idolize?  I certainly don't, why teach the female audience to regress back to an age where they had no rights, and that they should be okay with it.  We should be teaching about freedom of self and individualism, not submissive tendencies to give in to deep desires.

My thoughts exactly!

But oh ho ho videogame industry, don't think that you're quite free of any attention here.  Yea you know that game about six to seven weeks ago, Darksiders 2?  Yea about that, I'm going to need you to turn in your ID badge to my desk on Monday morning.  But in all seriousness games like Darksiders, Dantes Inferno, and Bayonetta, why do you exist?  Is it to torture me into reminding me of a time where Devil May Cry was one of the first titles to do it to a level of awesomeness that you so feel you must attempt to live up to?  Or is it to remind me of how there actually once was a good God of War game with a plot that wasn't just Kratos SMASH!!?  Now I'm all for a good platformer, and have played plenty in my years of playing games, and will probably play many more, but what some of these games have done is taken proven and good formulas for that worked for specific titles because of their fresh ideas, and thrown all of that away and pretty much told all of us to buy their games and not think twice.  I mean its kinda like Resident Evil games, where their not scary, just actiony.  Oh and Ubisoft, if after Assassins Creed 3 you don't call it a series I might have to punch you, because I don't want to buy anymore half-assed excuse for games, especially not if they're going to try and replicate the first 2, which were possibly 2 of the greatest games I've ever played, each for different reasons though.

Not really how I imagined Death to look like.

And thats pretty much why I'm pissed off, and you should be, with the current entertainment industry.  Yes, I know I didn't touch on all the good things happening these days, but when all of the bad things are doing so well you really don't want to think of the good things, mainly because its just that these problems are huge and out there and you're screaming that they need to be fixed, but no one is listening.  Oh and sorry Music Industry if I forgot to pick on you a little bit, but I don't really think much is going on with you.  I mean there's nothing wrong with Nicki Minaj or Justin Bieber right?  Or how the number one the Hot-100 right now is about Taylor Swift doesn't want to be with her ex anymore.  I mean, no, nothings wrong with any of that.  Right?

Developers vs Designers

So remember how a few weeks ago I told you something special was on its way?  As I told you, I will deliver.  Here at Breaking The Mold we value education of the general populace about quite honestly many things, from videogames to movies, entertainment to politics.  Now along with that I must also include awareness of issues and the encouragement to form your own ideas.  To us, this is paramount if we, as a society, are to advance and understand more.  It's like GI Joe put it, knowledge is power, and knowing is half the battle.  Think of it, the more we know, the more ready we are to form our own ideas and opinions.  So this is going to be kicking off a series of informational posts about pretty much whatever comes to the table and whatever we feel like.  So without further ado, I introduce the first topic: The Difference between Game Designers and Game Developers.

Okay so why cover this topic?  Well quite simple, many people don't know the difference.  People who play games and discuss games say they understand what the difference is, but in all reality they more than likely don't, and that's just fact.  I will admit it is a thin line and can be very hard to distinguish without looking closely.  But together were going to get to the bottom of it.

We all have our own skewed view of things.

Okay so Developers and Designers often get used as interchangeable words, but they're not, they are two completely separate entities what work in separate departments of a game company.  A good way to look at it is by looking at the words: designers create the rules, sculpt the setting, and see to it that players have the emotional experience they are supposed to.  While on the other hand a developer is in charge of the system that allows a designer to do this, from building the code to maintaining the database.  That doesn't really justify it though, so lets take a bit of a closer look.

Were going to start off with Designers since it does happen to be the more commonly used of the terms and also has the biggest variety.  Now a designer, like I said earlier, is the person that sits down and applies creativity to the game.  Designers design the game.  They are in charge of the rules, what the game does when a player performs an action, and the way the game looks and feels.  They are the artistic minds behind the game.  It is a designers sole responsibility to make sure that every creative aspect of a game is complete and concise, and to make sure that the game is well balanced and fair to all players.  Designers do everything from art, writing, rules, and even plot out the emotional journeys.

Spore lets the players do some designing.

On the flip side a Developer, like I said, is someone who sits down and actually works on the systems of the game.  These are your Computer Programmers, the Systems Engineers, and Engines Developers.  These are people who are constantly looking at code and taking what the designers make and translating that to a working and moving executable.  The Developers are the ones who are constantly staring at a computer screen, and are often the ones who will also be required to stay in late nights to meet deadlines.  All of the interactive physics, AI, hit detection, online communications, and even the scripting are responsibilities of the developers.

These are very easy to confuse and it honestly isn't hard to understand why.  A lot of people think that everyone in the game industry can do anything they want but that can't be any further from the truth.  I've had countless conversations with people where they say that the developers should change rule x, or the designers should have counted wind into the physics engine.  It just doesn't work that way, in order to do even a minor change to a basic element when the project is pretty far down the pipeline is very tough to implement a major change, but that gets down into software development which we wont discuss here.

One final thing that I would like to point out is that all good games are built in a specific way and not just in a manner of "I have an idea so lets run with it".  Usually the designers get to work on the games rules and systems while the developers do their setup processes so once the design documents and specifications are outlines all of the base coding, i.e. objects, data structures, system layout, are all done so the development team can dive head first into the game when the time comes.  Ideally you have your developers working on a project while the designers are polishing the final stages of story, levels, and endgame upgrades/abilities and when the designers finish they start working on the next project so the developers have something to do after they launch their current project.  But things don't always work out this way.  The image below should clarify some of this, the red is designers and blue is developers.

This is just a very brief overview of a few aspects of the game industry, and by no means is it a complete accurate telling of how everything works, mainly because it varies from company to company.  But hopefully now you under stand how these things are done and things are put together in a better light.  Peace out guys.

Coming Soon.....

So sorry for the lack of post this spring, it's been a very busy time for me.  However starting in two weeks I will be starting a new goal and setting for BTM.  It will be something for everybody to further their understanding, refresh on ideas, and generally become a more educated person.  Thats right folks, talks explaining some common misconceptions and revealing some truths.  Be prepared, knowledge is coming.

~The Mold Breaker

Monster Hunter

Okay so its been a while I know but what can you do?  Life is just busy, no two ways around that.  However this week I'm back and I wanted to do something in a bit of a different direction from just the usual identify a problem and offer insightful ways to solve or otherwise get around it.  Today I just want to point out a game that has been gaining steam in America slowly but surely, but still hasn't received the attention it deserves.  Today I want to tell you about Monster Hunter.

Can't beat the original.

So as some of you may know Monster Hunter is a game in which you create a Hunter from a small village in a land occupied by terrifying prehistoric beasts.  You start off small doing basic gathering quests going out getting meat and herbs for you village so you can learn about general game mechanics so you have some sort of survivability for the harder fight.  But after the whole jazz of having to run around do everyone errands for else in the village you hunting career begins.  You, needless to say, start off small with Velociraptor like creatures but quickly work your way up to Wyverns that will ruin your day should you make the wrong step.

The hunting does get really intense after you work your way up because not only are you fighting the Wyvern but your also fighting against the environment.  For example sometimes you'll fight in the desert which will continuously drain your health due to the heat, you can counteract this by items but it forces you to be prepared for every situation and really know where your fighting as well as what your fighting.  Of course in addition to this you have the ability to bring things to help you fight against these monsters such as traps and bombs.

Awesome armor to tide you over till high end plus hunts.

The game gets even better when you take it online (Monster Hunter for PS2, unfortunately the servers were taken down though) or linking via wifi with your friends (any of the Monster Hunters for PSP).  The fights are bigger, badder, and even deadlier than offline.  This includes fighting epic monsters that make you feel like your fighting a Navy SEAL team with spit wad launchers.  You also learn the value of using different weapons and having a balanced team in approaching these fights.

Long and short its a great game, that if you haven't, you should check out.  But that's not the big point that I'm trying to make here.  My big point is that the game, in recent years, has been gaining a lot of popularity, so much that people who appreciate the PSP games need to understand its roots, oh and don't even get me started on the Wii version, it doesn't exist in my mind.

The Rathalos, King of the Wyverns.

So many hunters now-a-days don't understand the fact that the first game was much harder, the weapons were more limited, the game was way more challenging and the monsters more deadly, I mean the first time you fight a Khezu you have no idea what was coming at you, and the Gravios was almost unpredictable.  The game had a much higher learning curve and there were no colored monsters.  There was just the regular ones offline, then the online ones.  Plus the secret hunt at the end of the game.

So I guess my point here is that if you call yourself a Monster Hunter fan and you haven't played the first one then you really should get out and play it to appreciate how difficult it is.  I tell my friends I hunt with about how hard it is and they only reply "Oh dude, I've killed those like 60 times."  Or the say "Well this isn't the original."  Yea it's not the original but at the same point in time there has to be an appreciation for where the game has come from.

So once again sorry about the infrequent posts lately, I've been really busy with midterms and preparing a special post for you guys that should hopefully be out later this week.  So yea guys, I'll get back to a more frequent posting here shortly.  Till next time.

My top 5 Most Anticipated of 2012

Okay so last week I revealed my top 5 games I played, for the first time, in 2011.  This week I'm going to broaden the issue a little bit and get out of the scope of gaming.  This week I will divulge to you my top 5 most anticipated things of 2012 in entertainment media.  Why entertainment media as a whole?  Well because games would be easy to do, my list just isn't that big yet and its kind of hard when not every release date for every game has been released yet.  So instead I'm going to just do top five of entertainment media.

5) Dev's First Studio Album
Okay, this thing has been a long time coming, and it better get here dammit.  Dev, for those of you who don't know, is an up and coming American Pop singer whose previous association has been with Electro Hip-Hop singers, The Cataracs.  Some of her more famous discographies include Like a G6 with the Far East Movement, On Top of the World with the Cataracs, and Dancing in the Dark.  The album was originally scheduled to be released in September of 2011, on the same day as Gears of War 3 but has since been pushed back, first to January 10th, 2012 under the reasoning of adding more songs to the American release of the album (the European and Australian releases were successful on September 5th, 2011).

Later in December Amazon announced that the album was being further delayed until March 27th, 2012 for reasons unknown.  My best speculation is due to the fact that she is pregnant, and doesn't want to have a release tour while still carrying.  Her Style and Lyrics are very similar to a mix between Ke$ha and Lady GaGa with a hit of Easy Listening thrown into the mix.  She has a couple of fast and upbeat party songs (Bass Down Low, Dancing in the Dark) and a couple of slower, more subtle songs (Kiss My Lips) on her upcoming album The Night the Sun Came Up.  Hopefully this years March release will be the last and official release date for the album because I, for one, could not take another push back in an album I've already been waiting for about 8 months already.

4) The Dark Knight Rises
Okay, so I'd be crazy not to be excited for this movie, especially with all the hype its been getting lately around the net with the whole "Bruce Wayne is going to die!!!1!!!1" thing.  But honestly that's not why I want to go see it, the biggest reason is because its going to wrap up the Batman Trilogy, with hopefully no cliffhangers.  Yes, I do not anticipate it to be better than Dark Knight, I do however anticipate it to be one of the best movies of the year.  Christopher Nolan has an unprecedented ability to add a very human side to Batman, yet still make him larger than life in the process.

From the first previews of it last summer to the launch of it July everyday the movie just keeps looking better and better.  The movie posters are out to which is only adding to the excitement.  Long story short, if it can hold up to the previous two installments this is going to be a great movie.  Oh and the inevitable return of Liam Neeson as Ra's Al Ghul makes me want to squeal like a school girl.

3) Mass Effect 3
Okay, I know what you thinking, why the hell is this at number 3 and not at number 1.  And well the reasoning is quite simple, the number 1 and 2 positions are filled with things I've been looking forward to for longer than I have for the end to the Mass Effect series.  Mass Effect is still fairly young and despite it being really awesome, there's more that I want to come out more.  But for those of you who don't know about Mass Effect 3 its BioWare's final installment in their epic space universe set around the player controlled hero Commander Sheppard.

Mass Effect 3 starts as the Reapers are now in the Milky Way about to gather the technology of the currently evolved races, and then proceed to destroy them.  As Sheppard you are the only man who stands in their way, you and your teammates.  The game launches in less than a month on March 6th, which when you think of it gives people not a whole lot of time if they don't like their Sheppard to get everything fixed.  Fortunately I do like my Sheppard so I don't really need to do a bunch of grooming.  If you haven't played Mass Effect before, now is the time to pick it up because you don't want to be left out when ME3 launches in March.

2) The Avengers
Yes, last years action hit Captain America finally spilled the beans of the first Avengers Trailer to be officially released, and we as the internet cheered.  The Avengers has been a long time coming, I think my first idea of an Avengers movie was when they released the first X-Men movie back in 2000.  With the new line up for 2012 The Avengers is going to be awesome, and I don't mean "Oh man the Simpsons are finally getting a movie" awesome, I mean "Oh hey look a South Park video game, and you get to make your own character!!!"  Yea, that awesome.

Lefts face it this has been at the top of everybody's wish list since the first Iron Man movie when Samuel L. Jackson showed up as Colonel Furry.  But this movie has an even bigger implication than that.  Its showing that even superhero movies are getting the positive attention that they deserve and that the comic book industry will be able to move forward as a whole because of it.  More awareness means more acceptance, which also leads to larger fan bases.  But regardless of its implications, its going to be awesome.

1) SSX
The worlds greatest Snowboarding Video Game franchise is finally back, and hopefully better than ever.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with SSX it's a snowboarding video game series whose first title launched in 2000 on the PS2.  It was much different from other snowboarding games till then in the fact that the most advanced tricks were unrealistic in nature and required the rider to often dismount his or her board in mid-flight.  The game was incredibly polished and smooth.  Since its release there have been 4 more to come after, SSX Tricky (still one of my top 10 games of all time), SSX 3, SSX on Tour, and SSX Blur.  This years release of SSX is particularly important to me because of the fact that its been a good 5 years since this game as seen light and its the first time that it will be available for XBox LIVE play.

Now I know I've said that I'm not a huge fan of sports games but for some reason I feel much different about SSX, especially this time around.  Its been a while since I've been able to really sink my teeth into a good SSX game and feel like its the first time so this is going to be pretty cool.  If you're looking for a really good, really high flying game I'd definitely recommend that you give this a go later this February (the 28th to be exact).  I know that I'll be playing this long into the coming months.

Definitely check these out, they're all gonna be pretty awesome, really fun and most importantly a great time.  This is just a small list too, there is no way that I could get everything I was looking forward to this year covered here so I had to pick and choose.  None the less this year will be a good year, and the end of February and Beginning of March will be a very hectic time for us all.   Till next time guys.

Underwold Awakening

Okay So I've tried once before to do a movie review and I just found it hard and complicated, the movie in question Harold and Kumar in 3D.  I didn't post it for a good reason, mainly being that I had rewrote it 4 times before saying "Eh, screw it".  But here I am again like like a teenage boy at his favorite porn site wanting to do more than look at the oh so pretty pictures.

Selene is back!  And better than ever.  More death is being indiscriminately dealt in more unrelenting ways than in any previous installments of the franchise.  For those of you who don't know Underworld is a Vampire vs. Werewolf movie franchise that stars Kate Beckinsale as the vampire huntress Selene.  Selene is what is called a Death Dealer, think of a Spartan from Halo in vampire form.  Needless to say she is badass beyond belief and has all of the "qualifications" to get the job done.

The first two movies focused around her love affair Scott Speedman's character, Michael Corvin, who also happens to be the long lost descendent of Alexander Corvinus, the father of Vampires and Werewolves.  The meet after she is hunting a Werewolf in a hospital where he works, he gets bitten, but she spares his life because something about him seems "different".  They later encounter each other again, somehow he gets bitten by a vampire and becomes a new breed of immortal, a hybrid of the two.  Long story short he's strong, they stop the war to be temporarily hunted by both sides.

Michael as a hybrid.

In the Second movie, Underworld Evolution, they must stop the first vampire, Marcus, from awakening his brother, William, the first Werewolf.  They pretty much get hunted by Marcus while trying to be the first to reach the tomb where William is locked away.  On the way there they meet Alexander Corvinus, who allows her to drink his blood knowing that it will give her awesome abilities (like survive in the sun and resurrect other vampires).  They find the tomb, fight toe to toe with Marcus and William and eventually win.  Hooray!  Peace at last?  Not quite.

So rise of the Lycans, while important, does nothing for Selene or her plight.  What it does do however, is show how the whole war started between the two immortal factions.  Pretty cool, but not super important here.

Movie poster of the original Underworld.

Sometime after the events of Evolution humans are made aware of both Vampires and Lycans.  Their response was not one of joy.  They ended all conflicts between each other and decided to start hunting down the immortals and use their own weapons and ammunition against them.  In the middle of the conflict Selene and Michael try to escape but are otherwise prevented from doing so, starting the events of Underworld Awakening, and coincidentally starting the spoiler warning of this blog post.  Seriously though, if you don't want to ruin the events of the movie and you're going to see it, skip to the bottom, get the rating and go see it.

So Selene is captured, they are taken to a genetics company, the one who first discovered the immortals, Antigen for study.  Twelve years of so later she is freed by another who is being held by Antigen, she thinks that it is Michael.  Selene escapes and starts a hunt through the city for them.  During her hunt she meets another vampire named David, shortly after they meet Selene gets a vision of her rescuer being cornered by "Lower Lycans", Lycans who have de-evolved to a wild beast like state.  They go to rescue and find a little girl and not Michael.  On the way back to Davids coven they are further attacked by the Lower Lycans and the girl, Eve, reveals her true nature as a hybrid and Selenes daughter.

Quint Lane, Giant Lycan.

Once they arrive at the coven Davids father, Thomas, immediately recognizes Selene as a Death Dealer and says shes not welcome, this sparks a debate amongst the coven of whether or not to restore the Vampire name to its former glory or hide like dogs.  Selene learns from David the events of "The Purge", when the Vampires and Lycans were hunted down, and decides that she won't stay and endanger the coven.  Antigen is uncovered to be Lycans trying to create a new race of Super Lycan that is immune to silver, but they need Eve's hybrid blood in order to do so.  They attack the nest and reveal the first Super Lycan, Quint Lane, the son of Dr. Jacob Lane, Antigens chief researcher, and the one who uncovered the Vampires and Lycans.

They get away with Eve and Selene decides to enlist the aid of a human, Detective Sebastian, and they launch an assault on Antigen to get back Eve.  Needless to say a lot of badass fight scenes ensue.  Dr. Lane is trying to harvest the genes of Eve to use on the new Lycan race but because of Selene is forced to relocate.  Selene see's this happening but Quint steps in to interfere.  Lane takes Eve into a transport van but Sebastian is there to intercept and disable it, Eve gets free and starts to go toe to toe with Lane, who has also been experimenting by injecting himself with Eve's genes.  Meanwhile Selene finds the mysterious Subject 0, Michael, in a third Antigen lab and frees him before going to fight Quint for the final time.  They have and epic fight but Selene eventually outsmarts him by making him revert to human form and cutting open his chest and putting in a silver grenade and blowing him up form the inside out.  Even eventually kills Dr. Lane by ripping his neck out.

Eve, Selene's Daughter.

At the end of the movie Selene, Eve, and David all run to the roof to try and catch Michael but he is nowhere to be seen and Selene can be heard saying that despite the humans now knowing of Vampires and Lycans neither race will be destroyed forever and that the war will continue.  Underworld 5?  Only if they can do it right.

Overall the plot was really cool, but nothing fantastically original.  What I found to coolest is that you actually find yourself feeling sad for the Vampires after what the humans did to them, essentially making humans one of the bad guys.  However they did do all their twists right to make a good action horror movie, the action is intense as one would expect from an Underworld movie.  Plenty of gunplay and unique weapons that only a Vampire would even dare attempt to use show up again, which is far from a bad thing, I mean, at least their being creative.  The score for the movie only helps to add to the already dark scene for the Vampires due to its heavy undertones that make the suffering feel all too real. 

Stephen Rea as Dr. Jacob Lane.

The acting is actually pretty good, Stephen Rea (V for Vendetta) does an exceptional job at Dr. Lane and really can be said to steal the show.  Kate Beckinsale, though nothing super unique, shows just how much she's settled into the role of Selene, by acting on of the most comfortable and non-forced roles I have seen since Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.  Theo James and Michael Ealy both do fantastic jobs in their supporting roles as David and Sebastian respectfully, and I really hope that they make appearances in the next Underworld movies, should they be made.

Overall I liked it, and thought it was just a fun movie, if you like traditional non-sparkly vampires check it out.  If you like good action movies check it out.  You'll be sure to get your moneys worth.  Also don't be too concerned if you haven't seen the previous movies, theres a nice recap at the beginning of Awakening for you.  And with that being said, Underworld Awakening gets 8 dead Lycans, out of 10.

Top 5 Games I played in 2011

Okay so sorry I haven't posted in a while but my laptop died, and well, I've been trying to fix it.  But here we are anyways, I see the error in my ways and I now say, lets get on with the show!!

As everyone else feels a compulsorily need to spew things about how certain games are better than others in a sense of scoring and ranking that are so convoluted they don't give a true sense of the fun that resides in them, especially when looking at the last years games in review.  I have hence decided to do the same, only mines all based on level of fun and not music, voice acting, or lack there of, and graphics.  These are games that I just enjoyed and I could really care less about what was wrong because they were just fun to play.  So a heads up not all of these games came out last year, these are just my favorite ones that I picked up and played last year, all of which however I've never played before last year.

5) Warhammer 40k: Space Marine

If you don't know anything about W40K the biggest thing to take away from it is this: Space Marines are badass.  Seriously whats not to love about an army of dudes who are about 3 feet taller than normal humans wearing cars for body armor and cutting their enemies down with swords that more resemble a chainsaw than anything else.  And because Space Marine let you focus on playing as one of these titans of war it was sooooo worth playing through.  I'd even dare to say that it lets you feel more badass than when you curbstomp a locust playing Gears of War.  This with the combination of some seriously fun, yet difficult, online play makes for one really great game.

On top of that all there is a multitude of deadly weapons in you arsenal that it makes it difficult to choose what guns to go into combat with.  The single player story holds true to any setting in the 40K universe and the games feel is exact for setting the right mood.  All in all if this is one you were on the edge about whether or not to buy let this be your inspiration to get it, its well worth it.

4) Vanquish
For those of you who don't know the next generation of solider doesn't reside in some fancy training routine, bio-injections, or even some gun that can do it all.  It resides in a set of "Smart Armor" that not only lets is occupant access Terabytes of information on the battlefield but also allows them to survive in a multitude of environments.  And that, my friends, is exactly what Vanquish is shooting for.  For those of you who don't know Vanquish is about a new weapons platform that gets its first real test of a combat situation when Earth gets threatened by some douche with a robot army, and since you're in the weapons platform, you gotta stop him.  Pretty cool huh?  Or it would be if it wasn't like many other Sci-Fi titles in the world today. 

What really sets Vanquish apart is the game mechanics and how they all revolve around the central idea of the armor you're wearing.  For example you can slide to maneuver quickly, all of you're guns are one gun that can rearrange itself due to carbon-nano polymers, and it can even inject you with concentrated adrenaline to slow down time.  This plus the awesome futuristic setting, of a probably future, makes the game rather believable.  The game has a ton of replay value if for no other reason than because how many games are this fast paced as a Third Person Shooter.  All in all this game is fantastic and comes highly recommended.  Oh and did I mention its made by the same team who made Phantasy Star?

3) Dragon Age 2
 The one reason I love and hate BioWare is that because their games are just too fantastic, for the most part (SW:TOR was a little disappointing to me), and Dragon Age 2 was no exception.  Though I did buy the game a little later than others did I thoroughly enjoyed every last minute of it.  The game shares the same name and setting as DA:Origins, but the similarities stop there.  Combat is completely different, the story structure has changed entirely from one giant overarching story to one overarching story with about three sub-stories built into it.  Hawkes decisions and actions completely change depending on what your gender and class combination's are and the game play is exciting all the way through.

The thing I would have to say that works best about it is the lack of freedom to travel outside the city, for the most part.  It's kind of a peculiar thing to say but it works, it really helps the story focus on Kirkwall and Kirkwall alone.  With the combination of some truly awesome endings depending on how you go about a couple of the major story intersections Dragon Age 2 is the perfect game for anyone who likes fantasy RPG's.

2) Skyrim
Bethesdas newest installment into The Elder Scrolls series hardly needs any introduction, base description, or even a recommendation to buy it.  If you're a fan of The Elder Scrolls you've already gotten it, if you think you might like it you've already played it and have probably bought it if you have the means to play it.  Its no wonder that it would end up here, or even as to why its here, its a great game.  Rarely does a game come about that honestly offer almost 400 hours of gameplay and deliver, but Skyrim did, and it did a damn good job at it too.

The side quests are fun and entertaining, some of the errands are cool, despite being as cookie cutter as you can possibly be, and the Dragon Fights are top notch.  The unique and rare items are wondrously designed, character balancing is superb, and most importantly the game is done right.  Its a good day when a true single player game can hold up in an online multiplayer world, and not only stand its ground, but surpass its competition, when its competition are all multiplayer focused games.  Major props to Bethesda and major props to Skyrim.

1) RIFT
RIFT, the top game I played last year and the only MMO that I have ever thought was capable of standing a chance at beating WOW at its own game.  RIFT offers something truly unique that most other MMO's can't come close to matching, and that is quite simple: randomized server-wide, non-sponsored events.  Thats right, RIFT has a unique system that at any point in time an invasion can randomly occur in any zone and the players are the ones that must stop it by closing Rifts and defeating the boss.  The players also gain a currency for closing them and can use it to upgrade their items. 

The best part about RIFT though is the class system.  With only four classes to choose from and 10 specializations each character has a versatility that is almost unseen in any other game on the market today.  All classes can tank and almost all classes can heal making RIFT a truly unique MMO that stand about the rest.  If you haven't played RIFT yet, or are even wondering about it give it a shot, its only $20 and comes with a free month trial, this game is highly recommended.

So that is my top 5 games I've played of 2011, if you are looking for a time killer of any kind check em out, you'll get your moneys worth.  Hrm I wonder if next week I should divulge the top 5 things in entertainment I'm looking forward to this year?  Nah that would just be too stereotypical.  Well this week was fun, till next time guys.

The MLG

Okay so I know that its been a while, but like I said I've been a little busy with school and finals.  But since thats all done with I'm going to try and make more than up for it over winter break, so what do you say here we go.

MLG's logo even looks like a pro logo.

Now, most of us know what MLG is and that it's on the forefront of commercializing gaming, and for the most part their goals and means are fairly on track with the majority of the industry.  However there are a few aspects of MLG that I think are a little misaligned.  Its nothing that can't be changed just by a little logistics or better planning, but, change is needed nonetheless.

So first of all lets take a look at what MLG is currently doing, just to make sure we're all on the same page about this.  So according to their website, the MLG is " the dominant media property exclusively targeting tens of millions of consumers worldwide who have a passion for playing video games as a competitive social activity".  They also host over 750,000 matches on the Pro Circut and by online matches every month.  Okay, sounds pretty good.  Sounds like they have some pretty noble goals in mind.  The question however comes into their implementation.

MLG should call in the expert for their implementation and logistics needs.

Gaming as a sport can not hope to hold up to football, basketball, or baseball simply because there are so many loyal die hard fans for each of those sports.  They have been around for long time and have been integrated into a lot of family traditions like watching football on Thanksgiving after a nice big family meal.  How can competitive gaming hope to compete with that?  Now its not to say that its impossible but they need to do a couple of things in order to be able to hold their own.

The big thing that MLG needs to do is to host and sponsor open, and advertised tournaments on all consoles and PC's that anyone can enter from home.  This would ultimately increase not only the awareness of their goal and their mission but also allow the "Average Joe" to be able to compete, very similar to the movie BaseketBall.  This would increase their player base, and generate more traffic.  By doing this they could not only host the small tournaments but they could also give out prized for these from the money generated from their advertising money, like 1000 Riot Points for winning a League of Legends tournament, or $20 to Playstation Store, or XBox LIVE Marketplace.  I know that would motivate me to get off my butt and start trying out some competitive play,  mainly because its usable.  Is cash nice?  Yes, but I already have a job and turning video games into a job takes away their fun.

For winning?  Yes please!

The second thing that MLG needs to do is to encourage, and build their hosted tournaments into a way that truly captures the difficulty of being a good player in an ever changing environment.  The best way to do this is the same way Arena, that old G4 show, did it: don't tell your players what their going to play until they pick up the controller.  Now this isn't to say completely get rid of their old circuits for this exclusively, but instead open it up for a fun and unique experience that no other sport can deliver.  Yes, scoring would be an issue, or would it?  You can get points for being the fastest person to beat World 3 in Super Mario Brothers, or earn points for getting the most kills in Gauntlet Legends, or simply by landing your monkey ball in the center of the circle.  Its really not as hard as you would be made to believe.

A third thing that can be done is MLG needs to have charity tournaments, where the players get close to nothing for winning but charities do, and not just Childs Play, not that they don't have a good mission its just that we as a community need to expand our influence, you know social acceptance and all that jazz.  This also needs to happen not just during the holidays but around the year.  By adding a single charity to donate, say 10% of their revenue and gift purse per tournament they could raise a ton of money for a lot of truly good causes and increase not only their awareness, but their players awareness and the awareness of the community as a whole.  It would be a phenomenal thing to see, almost every other professional sport does charity work in some way, shape or form.  So this is an almost crucial step into making MLG and professional gaming into an actual sport.

A very good goal, but lets diversify.

The trick is though to not just talk about it, but to actually do it.  And the only way that something cant get done is if the players raise their voices and take it upon themselves to let it be heard.  Once again, sorry for the absence, and till next time guys.

Thank You

So first of all, sorry for not posting for a couple of weeks, I've been busy with finals and such for school.  I promise I'll get you guys a couple of posts next week to make up for it.

Now onto what I wanted to say:

THANK YOU, 1000 HITS!!!

You guys rock, seriously.  I know 1000 is a low number but its a stepping stone into something greater.  So thank you.

Skyrim, and why you should buy it if you haven't already.

So first thing is first, once again sorry about last weeks late post, and to supplement that I also would like to say that The Console War is a two-fronted event, the early side was the actual systems themselves and the second and later side is on games that are released on multiple consoles.  Also I know that Movie Bob talk about it last week as well and I'm not copying him and his arguments, we just happen to have similar viewpoints and he just happened to beat me to the punch.  So all respect to Movie Bob, I don't mean to plagiarize or steal your thunder.

But back to the topic. So Skyrim, yea.  Needless to say this game is awesome.  Probably one of the best that I have played in a long time.  However, that does not mean its without its faults, like the non-sticky object movement function.  Or maybe the RPS (rock/paper/scissors) food chain of the world.  But all in all it is a great game.

Dovakiin.

So to any of you who have played any of the other Elder Scrolls games, Skyrim ones again takes place in the land of Tamriel, only this time in the Northern country of Skyrim.  Oh also if you don't want to learn things about the game I would stop reading here and go pick up a copy before reading the rest.  Back on topic now.  Only this time its 200 years after the events of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.  You see in the absence of the last great Dragonborn, Martin Septim (who turned into a Dragon, don't go flaming me for spoilers because everyone should know this already) the Human Empire has taken a turn for more or less the worst.  The Elven Dominion has decided that Men are inferior to them and since decide that they need to be calling the shots for once.

Now the Thalomor, the Elves in charge of the Dominion, have decided that Talos, the first Dovakiin, or Dragonbron, should no longer be considered a divine, and as such have destroyed all of his temples and decided that any who worship him are to be killed, merely because a Man cannot become a divine.  Theres also a civil war in Skyrim that conveniently happens to coincide with the reappearance of Dragons.  Not like they could have made it so one happens and then the next, like oh no there's Dragons again lets kill those and then kill each other later.  But it all falls on you, the last Dovakiin, to settle all of Skyrims problems.

Dragon from Skyrim.

Once again Skyrim is a sandbox RPG where you can go around and pretty much kill whatever and whoever you want with little fear of retaliation, because if they do you just yell at them.  Seriously, you get mad and give them a little Foss Ro Dah, and argument over.  So along with those sandbox reigns you have a go anywhere, do anything type of deal.  Though Skyrim is considerable smaller than Cyrodil, ES4:Oblivion, you feel like you have more range of movement due to the fact that your a mountain goat and can climb almost anything.  Also you never know when you'll run into a quest from a random stranger too.

Not only is this sandbox huge, there is a ton of customization.  Think of a WoW talent tree for each and every one of your characters skills.  This, if you can't tell, leads to some serious customization.  The same fighting style can differ immensely, for example my Warrior specializes in Axe's and Heavy Armor, a friend of mine does Light Armor and Sword.  Both are warrior and fundamentally the same just different executions.  However the one downside is a complete lack of a stat system, which means no longer stacking Strength for some serious damage bonus/carry weight.

Fus Ro Dah is a meme now.

But I'm pretty sure the question on everyone's minds is: What are the Major quest lines?  Well beside the story quest, aka stop the Dragons from taking over Tamriel again, and the subsequent end of the world, Skyrim offers more Major quest arc's than Oblivion did.  Most notably there are The Companions (Warriors Guild), College of Winterhold (Mages Guild), Thieves Guild, and yes, of course The Dark Brotherhood, only much much less cool.  We've also got a civil war that I mentioned before, oh, and the problems of every Jarl in Skyrim.

The main storyline though, is where the fun is at.  Not only do you fight more dragons than the number of times someone said "Dragonball" in Dragon Ball Z, but you also acquire some really cool shouts, like Clear Sky's, and Fire Breath.  You also get a chance at seeing a familiar organization from the rest of the Elder Scrolls series, a trip to the past, and an actual Elder Scroll.  Thats right, an Elder Scroll.  The first one to be an integral part of any of the games so far in the series.  Oh also, Summon Dragon.

So many dragons you even get to wear them.

The weapons and armor is really good looking, though if you choose Light Armor and make your own you're kinda screwed.  Also the enchanting system is really awesome, you essentially have to destroy an enchanted item to learn its secret, then after you do that you get to put it on any applicable items.  Some enchantments can only be put on certain items, this is to prevent people from tossing chameleon on everything for a 100% invisibility and kill everything, you know, what you did in Oblivion.  These new craft systems are very fun, and a great way to level up, so never look past them as a possibility.

No more Ninja in a living room in Skyrim.

Followers make their way back into Skyrim, only this time they don't die like a match in a hurricane.  They actually do damage, and they will heal out of combat, rather rapidly in fact.  You can get them fairly easily, all you really need to do is join a guild and get to the top, do a favor for a Jarl, or just hire to local drunk at the tavern, or in one case beat a guy within an inch of his life.  It is very beneficial to think before you get into a situation when choosing your followers however.  For example don't take an archer inside a cave, or don't take a Warrior if you're a Warrior too, they would just get in the way.

So all in all Skyrim is awesome.  Bethesda said that they were gonna do a few new and fun things for Skyrim and they delivered on all accounts.  It really makes me happy to know that there is a game company that still takes all of their games seriously and doesn't rush them.  However the game isn't perfect, *cough* stat system *cough*.  Though I am very excited to see what kind of DLC gets introduced in the near future.  But for now Skyrim gets 9 Dragons, and one Fuss Ro Dah, out of 10.  (Thats a 9.5/10 for those who don't speak Dragon.)