Kinect: Better With Skyrim

Dilated pupils, Dovahkiin?  So, that isn't fog floating around you.

Well, tomorrow is Tuesday, the day of the week that always finds its way into the soft place in a gamer's heart, despite being in the beginning of the week.  This is all the more so with the release of the Skyrim Kinect Support!  Yes, it's finally happened where a main stream game has a massive update to allow great use of the Kinect controller-free system.  What about Mass Effect 3?  Well, that was the first to really utilize the Kinect but it was in more of a "hey that's neat" kind of way.  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim options for Kinect seem to be far more in-depth.  At least, in my opinion.
Take a look at the Skyrim Kinect Support trailer:

That.  Looks.  So.  Damn.  Cool.
In addition, Bethesda, developer of the Elder Scroll Series has so graciously posted a list of all the Kinect supported words and phrases.  I'd suggest printing it. Hi, I'm the link!!

::prints::

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty nuts about this.  I even traded in my PS3 version of Skyrim for the 360 version just so I could utilize my Kinect a little more (it's been collecting dust as an exercise piece...)!!  Plus, it didn't hurt my decision that the PS3 version was still insanely buggy. >_<

One last bit... along with the release of the Kinect update, Bethesda will be giving an announcement concerning the first DLC (downloadable content) for Skyrim.  Oh, my nerd-dom has gone off the radar here.  I guess there's a small part of me that is glad that my better half is gone for the week as I fulfill much delayed gaming withdrawl.  She'd probably kill me if I were to start shouting at the TV while she's trying to do.... well, anything.

Devs Are People, Too!

A recent article from Gamespot has rekindled my attention to something that has been floating out in rumor land for a few months now, Next-Gen consoles blocking used video games.  This is probably one of the more important topics for gamers to pay attention to, but is kind of flying under the radar a bit, or is at least over looked a lot more than topics like homosexuality in video games.  However, when the topic does come up a good amount of the voices are those of the consumer exclaiming the selfish evils of the developers and publishers and their money-grubbing tactics.  WAAAAAHHH!!

You know what?  I too feel a slight stinging in my heart when I think about how much money I WON'T be saving if I'm forced to buy only new, unused games at full retail price.  That would make my purchasing habits minimize as well as minimize the bookshelf of games of which I'm slowly growing proud.  I don't want to have to deal with buying a game at full price, then, after an hour of play, realize what a horrid piece of refuse I have purchased and then come to find out I cannot trade it in for anything because it was part of the "non-resellable" games for the new Next-Gens.  It would be the end of all things for anyone less sane.  And let's face it, despite my mild temperament, I border on sanity and bi-polar pretty often.  And remember that there are many, many people who are worse than me and with louder voices.

There would be no doubt that a veritable shit-storm of cries, whines, bitches and moans would emanate from the victimized masses.  Panic and chaos would reign supreme at Gamestops all over the country as calls for refunds and credits would hail from the heavens upon the unprepared black-polo-ed customer service representatives.  Stores would close.  Walmarts would take over.  Uninformed game opinions would take over the internet.  ANARCHY!!!

However.

Despite the fact that the doomsday machines are possibly in the works with the Next-Gens, I cannot help but think that blocking used games is something that makes complete and total sense, from a business perspective.  Most gamers are hobbyists and play only for an escape from a rough day... or the real world, whatever.  And those people don't pay attention to the workings behind the machine.  They don't see the cogs; developers, publishers, distributors, etc.  They only see the game and the price tag on it.  Isn't that a bit selfish?

"Waaaaaaahhhh!!"  Why should I have to buy the game new?  Why do I have to pay for a code to play the game online when I could rip off the development company and buy the game used?  I SHOULD be able to buy the game at a cheaper price and give nothing to the people that make the game.  I'm a special consumer.  Waaaaahhhhh!!!"  Oh, good grief.  Shut the hell up already!

This is seriously the thinking behind many gamers on the internet.  They see it as "unfair" or a "scam" or some damn invasion of their rights to cheaper shit.  Well, it isn't (well maybe the invasion of getting cheaper shit, but that's not immoral).  It's business and it's a way for the companies that gamers love and enjoy to stay alive.

Let's face it.  Gamers have been ripping these poor bastards off for years now, especially with how long the current gens have been running.  Gamers go into a Gamestop, GAME, EB Games, etc and buy a slew of great games, used and at a fraction of the original, new retail price every day.  This does a world of good to the retailer but does next to nothing for the people that make and/or publish the game.  Shouldn't they be the ones that gamers, the "loyal" fans of these guys, be protecting?  YES!!

It's being seen all over the place.  SONY recently announced they're cutting thousands of jobs.  Developers are closing down and/or are being bought out by other companies just to survive.  Thousands of jobs are being lost in an industry that shows such great potential for progression and innovation.  Why?  Because the consumers are not giving anything back to these people.  They're essentially STEALING the products from under the noses of the ones making them.

Now, I'm not a developer (would love to be some day *dreams*) and I really hate spending 60 bucks for a video game, but I also am intelligent enough to know that if I keep buying used games, a lot of my favorite developers, and thus my favorite series, will be shut down due to lack of profit gains. I think that takes a little bit more prevalence, at least in my mind, than saving 20 or so dollars.  Wouldn't one agree?

Personally, I'm not completely for the ban of used games in the Next-Gen systems, but I wouldn't be outraged if it happened.  I'd realize that these people, who work the hardest for us, the gamers, need to put food on their families' plates, too.  Therefore, we should be buying new games, instead of used.  And if any gamers get concerned about buying garbage games and then being stuck with them, perhaps looking into a Gamefly or Blockbuster account may end up being a good solution.  Rent a game for a few days, decide you don't like it and send it back.  The end.  Not so hard, huh?

"But it's an inconvenience to me.  I want to worry only about me."

Well, get over it, and yourself.

Where is everybody?

Okay, while I've got some downtime at work, I just wanted to post something on here that was bugging for the last week or so, and something reminded me of it.

Maybe about a week and a half ago, I was looking to play something online, namely a shooter type and on my 360. I decided to go with Transformers: War For Cybertron. Now if you've grown up with the Transformers G1 series and want to see something that takes the horrid taste of Michael Bay from your mouth, then this is the one for you. Enjoy.

With that in mind, I figured, "Hey, there should be a decent amount of people still playing this, despite the fact that this came out almost 2 years ago." Good enough logic, right? Boy was I on the "dark of the moon" on that one (see what I did there?).

I went to the global options for multiplayer and local and found a grand total of 128 players online... in the evening! What!? Apparently, unless your game's title is Call of Duty or Gears of War or Battlefield, etc, the likelihood of your multiplayer function lasting longer than six months is pretty much slim-to-none. Seriously!? That's how fickle you guys are? Are we really at the point where playing a game that's barely two years old is considered "nostalgia?" Oy vey.

That's just becoming sad. Not only did High Moon Studios create a Transformers game that embodies pretty much everything one could want from the series, they created a pretty fantastic multiplayer that had me playing pretty heavily. Sadly, that's not enough in today's gaming market. You gotta be a big name franchise before people will play your game beyond a year's time.

Really, people? I thought we knew better than that. And honestly, if playing WFC is nostalgia, then what is playing Super Mario Bros. on the original Nintendo? Being in denial? Gah!

The Color Purple... Isn't Manly?

I was gallivanting through Facebook earlier and came across this article on The Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/kristen-wolfe/dear-customer-who-stuck-u_b_1190690.html

Yes, the link is crude, but I'm trying out a new app for my 3GS for mobile posting, so whatever.

I honestly cannot fathom how a human, in this day and age, would actually consider an ass whooping to be a proper response to a child wanting to have a "girly" colored controller. Nor can that be an appropriate response to getting a game that has a female protagonist. I was always under the impression that playing a game with a hot female lead was always a good idea (reference every Tomb Raider game, ever, and Bayonetta). Perhaps I was misguided.

In addition, as a little brother to a big brother, I have to give major props (yo) to this young man for sticking up for his little brother, especially against his idiot father. I mean, yeah, maybe not all dads want their boys to show a feminine side, even in video gaming, but that doesn't mean you have to be a dick about the whole process. Slip your suggestion in, make your case, but then let your kid decide what they want to play. As long as the game is AGE appropriate, not GENDER appropriate, it shouldn't matter, right?

Seriously? "I'm gonna whoop you into shape if you don't pick something more manly," is how you get your kid to show more masculinity? Hell, you were even going to let a 10-12 year old play an M FOR MATURE rated game just to make sure he wasn't being "girly." Loser.

Honestly, folks, we could all take a lesson from this teenage, older brother. Protect who someone is, not who you think they should be. Gaming has matured to where all types of players, characters, and worlds exist. Perhaps maybe we could start thinking our real one could learn something from that.

BioWare: Synonym For Sexism?

Well, here we are.  It's a new year and a new day to be a gamer/blogger (after researching a bit more on blogging, I realize that I have a lot more to learn, but that's for another day).  And on this day I learned that I can get some really awesome perks when I pre-order my soon-to-be-owned copy of Mass Effect 3.  Imagine my excitement to learn that when I pre-order from Gamestop I'll be getting some really kickass in-game stuff.  Win, right?  Well, that doesn't seem to be enough to assuage some concerns from some in the gaming community.

Twitter has let me know that some people are talking about the binary nature of all the alien species in the Mass Effect universe. Kris Ligman, host of Dire Critic and curator of "This Week in Video Game Blogging"  on Critical Distance, set my Twitter afire with a discussion about sexism and sexual binaries in video games, namely Mass Effect.  I can't necessarily blame her.  Human sexes have always been split up into male and female.  It's that way in nature, too.  So, video games are made that way, too; male characters and female characters.  Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, if you think about it, we're getting into an age in which it is acceptable that sex doesn't define gender.  And yes, there is a difference between the two.  Sex is what you're born as, gender is more along the lines as what you define yourself to be.

 

Bieber is still deciding.

It's a guy.  Nothing wrong with that.

However, I can't help but think we're not quite at an age where games, especially those made by big name companies like BioWare, are going to introduce title characters that are not ruled by gender.  Granted, there are some decent hits in the past where you could find some androgynous characters (go here to check out the "Top 25 Androgynous Characters in Gaming" according to Ugo.com), but I doubt a high-end AAA game is going to want to make massive waves with a cross-dressing or highly androgynous main character.  And it's not because they think it's bad (nor do I), but it's more so coming from the fact that the mainstream audience of gamers isn't ready for that, yet.  And while I think that is a sad fact, I cannot help but think that it's the safe way to play things, for now.  Hell, BioWare had no issue with putting blatant homosexual situations (both female AND MALE!!) into Dragon Age II (kudos for that, by the way), so I wouldn't be surprised if they were to become the ones that pave the way for a new way of thinking about a AAA main character and its gender.  Hell, they did an awesome job with Bastilla Shan from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.  She was hot in a powerful, "don't-f*ck-with-me-or-I'll-spear-you-with-my-double-bladed-lightsaber" kind of way.  And, of course, everyone loved FemShep, the feminine version of the lead character of the Mass Effect series.  She's so badass, Sylvester Stallone sits in a corner moping about how he wishes he was as badass. Neither Bastilla nor FemShep required cleavage to pull that off.

"I don't care if shit's going down behind me, I'm busy being a badass!"

In the meantime, BioWare is probably worrying about people's concern with the sexism that is seemingly running rampant in their newly released Star Wars: The Old Republic.

A bit of info on SWTOR:
You are a character that has a main story in the Star Wars universe, 3000 years before the rise of Darth Vader.  Your choices affect who you are and what kind of relationships you have with the NPCs (non-playable characters) in the game.  Those decisions could be romantic or twisted in nature.  You get to decide.

Amongst the more popular, or more prominent ones, are those decisions based around the Sith Warrior class.  The Sith Warrior has a companion (a little helper that you get along the way) that is a slave, Vette.  As a slave, she wears a restraining collar that shocks her at your pleasure.  Yep, you get to decide what kind of torture she does or does not endure during your travels together.  Personally, I find it amusing that games still have this sense of stupid power control available, but I guess it's mainly there in the hopes that the player will be nice enough to fall for Vette and remove the collar from her and advance the romantic arc.  However, that may not always happen, so BioWare had to create the options for those in the mindset of pure evil and allow Vette to be abused; verbally, physically, and emotionally.  For more on the subject, reference this article from Forbes.com for their writer's opinion on the matter.

Overall, this is just a small part of what some female gamers have had an issue with.  The bigger problem lies in the fact that BioWare's character creation is lacking overall.  Female characters have no real differentiation in size of bust or in curves ratio on the body, the main things that differentiate women.  And again, this is more so an overarching problem with the lack of options in the whole character creation of SWTOR (male creation included) than it is as a situation directed at female characters.  However, BioWare used this model format to dictate the whole of the Star Wars galaxy and how the characters would look.  Something that doesn't wear well on players and their significant others (yep, my better half really is not thrilled).  This, in turn, has left some people concerned that the good doctors at BioWare, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk (**edited this due to my incompetence over the Doctors' degrees**) haven't had the female gamers much in mind during the production of their multi-million dollar gaming venture.

"Yep, we're the ladies men you all think we are... Who wants to play D&D?"

Should that be the case, perhaps it's time for the good doctors and the BioWare squad to get together and find a means to draw in more female gamers and/or heal a few of the wounds inflicted by displaying a sign of good faith.  Perhaps a new trailer for Mass Effect 3 which features a very outstanding and brave female Commander Shepard.  I doubt any person would have a complaint about that.  Then again, this is the internet and expecting an unanimous approval of something on here is like expecting a wise decision from the Iowa Caucus.

Modern Warfare 3 goes for over $1700!? GAH!!

So, through numerous gaming sites, it has come to my attention that a leaked, early copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 went for $1,725 on ebay.

Let us have that marinade for a bit...





I'll give you a minute...





Just one more...





Okay.
REALLY!?  ONE THOUSAND, SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS?!  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?
I thought it was nuts that people would spend something similar to that for the PS3 or XBOX 360 on their release.  Nope, the world has once again surprised me with its brilliance by letting a human being spend more than I make in a month on one, single game... 6 days early.
Yes, that grossly overpaid amount was given just so the idiot who paid it could play the game 6 days early.
I hang my head in shame at the thought that I share a species with this person.  Honestly, if you have the money to blow $1,725 on a video game then you should be doing something better with that money, namely for the people who can't even afford the game at its $60 release price.
Is this seriously the world that we live in?  I get wanting to get into playing one of the most anticipated games of 2011.  Hell, I want to be amongst those people at the midnight release.  But shelling out nearly 2 grand to do so?  Ugh.  That's just heart-breaking, people.  And we wonder why people are scrambling by trying to make ends meet on two jobs.
To the person who spent that money for a $60 video game... what the Hell is wrong with you?  Straight up.  If you have nothing better to do with that money then I guess you are a lucky, little bitch.  But you're still a fucking idiot.

Very Happy Holidays... To Those Who Can Afford It

Once again, it has come to my attention that I have a blog and I have been neglecting it, making it feel small and low about itself.  If I truly gave a damn about the feelings of an inanimate... Hell... intangible object, I might buy it something to forgive me.  Alas, I am not that kindhearted.  Yet, here I am, typing away.  So I guess acknowledging it is enough.

Anyway....

It has arrived!!  The Holiday Season!!  Or at least according to the advertisement companies it has arrived.  To me it still won't arrive for another 2-3 weeks, but whatever.  It's here and so are the games for which many a gamer have been pining.
Battlefield 3
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Assassin's Creed: Revelations

These guys are amongst the hot list for the console generations (and the PC guys who want to do nothing but drool at the Skyrim graphics) during the Holiday 2011 season.  You might throw Star Wars: The Old Republic in there, too (I know that I am going ga-ga over it since I've been following its development since the 2008 announcement), but with it releasing so close to Christmas (December 20th, worldwide) you might not be finding it being something that many will be racing to the stores to get at the last second.
For me, I find that this is such a cruel time of year.  Anyone who has read my previous ramblings will notice that I work sales... big money making is to be had there.  Therefore, I am not really in the market to be shelling out $60 a week on a new game, not to mention twice a week for dual releases (MW3 and Skyrim are releasing Tuesday and Friday, respectively, this week).
Seriously.  I would love to get my hands on all of these games; Uncharted 3 to complete Drake's quest, Assassin's Creed 4, to see how they FINALLY end Ezio's end of things, Skyrim... because I love the idea of spending hundreds of hours in a game and not even being close to done.  However, I cannot, much like many others out there.  And it sucks for us.  Those of us who would love to be classified as "Hardcore Gamers", but have to scrape by just to pay the rent, absolutely hate this time of year.  So many great games, too little time, and WAY too little cash to spend.
How long are we going to have to wait before we can actually find games, new games, for $40-50?  Are those days never going to reach us?  What about the days before Madden owned the rights to the NFL?  Remember when 2KSports practically gave out their NFL games for $20, brand new, and scared the pants off of the EA execs?  I do.  I miss that.  Not only did it make gamers feel like they could afford great, new releases, but it also made the market much more competitive.  But that's an argument for another day.
I guess my point is that this time of year, despite the Christmas music, lights and cheer that I love, I cannot help but feel low about my gamer status because I just cannot justify the spending of $60-120 a week for new games, just to keep up.  Please, gaming execs, I know you enjoy the heaps of cash that you may rake in from these releases, but please understand that we, the gamers, can't keep up with you guys.  It's maddening and saddening.  Emphasis on the saddening part.
I just want to be able to get paid a full salary for gaming.
Maybe I just need to win the lottery first....