my gamer june 2014

Wow. Somehow the days just fly by...

Nutshell

P4G, Sly4, WD, Trials and Transistor are going to be my games this month.

llehstuN

What did I do the last month: I again had less time than I thought for gaming, so on my Vita I played a lot of Persona 4 Golden and on PlayStation 4 I finished Tomb Raider, but I added Transistor and Trials Fusion to the list.

Vyson: "Call! I'm first!"

"Yeah, okay, keep it down, little guy."
I've finally got my hands on a 32 GB memory card, so I downloaded 20 gigs worth of games, but I probably only play P4G and Sly Cooper : Thieves in Time, as sadly there are no interesting releases this month for me (and also I'm broke for the next two weeks). Oh, almost forgot Dragon's Crown (PS+).

Psyon: "Don't leave me alone!"

"Nah, I won't, you powerful black electronic entertainment device."
There is a lot of Watch_Dogs to play (singleplayer and multiplayer) and I hope I get Killzone : Shadow Fall back (my brother is keeping it at his place -.-). And never forget about the "small" games: Transistor and Trials Fusion.
I guess I'll try the PS+ games, but I'm not really up to date with those...

But you are not only going to play, are you?

I wish :D
No, there is supposed to be sun out there (maybe...) and the university is nothing to ignore.
But my new TV is gonna show me 24 - Season 2, Tudors - Season 3, House MD - Season 6, Breaking Bad - Season 3, Black Bullet, Sunday without God, Oreimo *cough*, Hamatora and Hannibal. And on my Nexus 5 I'll listen to Child Lee's Running Blind (Jack Reacher 4) and Sergej Lukianenko's Sternenschatten (Звёздная тень) and read The Activity, Bedlam, Okko, Sex and Who/Where is Jake Ellis?.

Yeah, I'm never going to get to do all of this :D

Advanced Warfare, Hardline, The New Order, The Revolution, Shadow Fall

I'm happy and really excited^^ Why? Let's see.

Nutshell version:

FPS are diversifying and that's awesome for everyone!

Nutshell end:

The trailers

We all know trailers can be misleading, but they offer an important insight into the game's story and setting, and that's exactly why here they are:

Call of Duty : Advanced Warfare

set 40 years into the future the biggest PMC is waging war with the States

and it isn't looking too good for the former superpower

Battlefield : Hardline

set in the present (or very near future) we follow a cop

battling crime and corruption

Wolfenstein : The New Order

a steampunk scenario set in 1960 where Nazi germany won WWII

and our protagonist is clearly not a fan of this

Homefront : The Revolution

A near future scenario where a north korean dictatorship rules over USA

and the protagonist is part of a guerilla revolution

Killzone : Shadow Fall

A cold war scenario in the far far future where former archenemies

are living on the same planet, divided only by a wall

You see what I see? Not. The. Same.

Could be a lucky strike?

No, I don't think so.

For years the big names always played the same game. We had World War II, then the present. The near future setting changed the game a bit, because Battlefield wasn't following, but a lot of games copied it, so basically most games had the same setting plus minus a few changes.

But these are the most recent big FPS games (I left Doom, Half Life etc, because not really recent, and Halo, because it's still Halo) and they all have a different setting. I really hope they are the beginning of new stories and lore for their franchises.

But why does it matter?

Come on. You really want me to spell it out? ...Okay...

We are not going to play in the same setting over and over again and not only the setting will be different, but there are (in this list) unique mechanics in each game. That's in for us.
For the publishers and devs there is the chance to make more money as we may not only buy one game (because every game is essentially the same), but two or three.
More money for publishers and devs and more game variety for us^^

So if you have anything to add, to criticise (for example my use of commata) feel free to drop a comment below^^

Watch_Dogs - my opinion

Watch_Dogs is finally released! I've preordered it back in August '13 and these are my thought.

Nutshell version:

atm I'll give WD a 4 out of 5. You should buy it.

Nutshell end.

This is kinda new to me, so let's try it this way : I'm going to spend a lot of time playing Watch_Dogs, so waiting till I'm finished for writing something about it won't do it. 

How's this gonna work then?

So I'm splitting it up into three parts :
Part 1 is a simple thumb up/down/even thing with a short explanation.
Part 2 will be a 5 point rating and I'll write more about the game and what my opinion is.
Part 3 is the final 10 point rating with a lot of text behind it no one will ever read :P

The thumb-rating: UP

What did I do?

Getting closer to finish Act 1 and a few hours of free roaming and hunting criminals, also a bit invasion. I guess 4 to 5 hours up till now.

So what are my thoughts?

It's not the big playground GTA is (elephant in the room), but it's not trying to be. It's a game about hacking and how the main character's life got fucked because of hacking (and maybe will get a lot worse through the main story).
Hacking is super important and trying to ignore this element will seriously limit the fun you can have, like really seriously :D Also you should do a few missions first before free roaming a lot, way more tools to play with that way :)
Invasion is a nice idea, but don't expect to win the first rounds. It's not easy. Sadly there was no one available for stalking yet, but it's the very first day, so MP is gonna fill up during the next days.

PS : Layout etc will be done in the next 18 hours or so. Android app is only useful for typing :(

The five star-rating: 4 out of 5

What have I been up to in Chicago?

I'm somewhere in the middle of Act 3 of 5, free roamed a lot, did side missions, got killed a lot online, stuff like that :D

Is it perfect?

You're kidding? Nothing's perfect.

It is a really good game, but there are flaws. Let's get them out of the way:

• Helicopters suck. Not because they've got snipers and big light beams, but the only time you can really point upwards and hack them is when you're walking. Now imagine a three to five star chase and you have to stop your car, get out of it, point at the heli to hack it, get into the car and drive away - with shooting cops and snipers and SWAT cars around you... Fun...
• The player's car sometimes glitches through other cars. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen. Maybe it's some physics thing, because your own car is getting away with a lot more crashes than npcs' cars.
• Fast hacking is a bit hit and miss. If you're in a chase, it is sometimes hard to hack the right things, though using the "focus" labeled slow motion ability helps a lot in those situations.
• Online can be really laggy. I mean it could be a problem with the people's connections, but we all know the servers are not up to the challenge atm, though fixes and scheduled downtimes for maintenance could get rid of that in no time.
• Matchmaking is kinda off. First match in online decryption and all my enemies were pros with a lot more points than I've got... But maybe I was just not lucky :D

That's what comes to mind. Nothing game breaking (well, maybe the lagging is borderlining), but it can be annoying.

Why is Watch_Dogs a true next gen game?

That's a valid question, because we tend to measure next gen-iness in graphics and effects, but nowadays that may not be the right way to do it anymore...

But let's look at the graphics: 

[PS4 screenshots captured by me will be here]

They are not as breathtaking as the E3 '12 trailer, but we knew that already. But there is way more at work here:

• There is a working wind simulation running all the time for the whole city and explosions etc are creating visible distortions.
• There is the NPC AI which is responsive and changing. You shoot a gun in a crowded place and some people will only turn around to you while other's totally freak out or do something in between those two extremes. According to your status in Chicago they might call the police or won't, because you're their hero. If you are not really likable they will call the cops you show your gun in public. Ouch.
• The sound is really good. I just love to listen to the car's engines roaring or the explosions, the gun sounds. Or if you're the more subtle guy listen to the sounds of the city, the NPCs' conversations, the angry honking etc etc.
• The windows in WD are not just textures, but using some magic to show real rooms, that are not really there. (I don't get it. I'm not trained in that stuff :D)

That sounds pretty next gen to me.

Should you play it?

You're a fan of open world games, shooting guns, driving through a living city etc etc? Then yes, you really really should.

If you're new to the whole genre, I'm not sure. WD does a lot of stuff really good, but GTA is sort of the game that comes to mind. Toss a coin or search a (fair!) comparison of GTA V and WD. There oughta be a lot of them out there in the wild :D

Oh, and you can finish the whole game without killing one civilian or cop!

That is fantastic and I wish every game (like GTA or WD) has something similar!

my gamer may 2014

Already May?! That's crazy :D

Nutshell version for lazy people:

This is a Vita-month! P4G, Hotline Miami, Sly, FEZ. And there is Tomb Raider.

Nutshell end.

So first let's look at the last weeks: I wanted to play a lot more than I had time for, so that is quite sad... But I've enjoyed inFAMOUS : Second Son's Paper Trail a lot and got into Killzone : Shadow Fall again (Insurgent DLC). I played Sly : Thieves in Time and a bit Jak & Daxter : The Precursor Legacy and got (I guess) half way through Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition.

First : my little precious Vita

I'm about to Platinum Hotline Miami and it's a really great game (Thanks PS+)! There's Sly : Thieves in Time (Plus), Persona 4 Golden (Easter Sale) and FEZ (Sale) for me to play. That's quite a lot of game :D
And that's good, because...

... here comes the PS4

And frankly there is not a lot: Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition, Killzone : Shadow Fall MP.
Oh, don't think I'll forget about Watch_Dogs, but that's so late into May, it doesn't count anymore. But I'm so hyped for WD (I'm gonna cancel my online preorder to preorder it at my local store. I'll get the game a few hours earlier!)^^

What else?

I'm watching 24 - Season 1 and The Tudors - Season  3 while keeping up to date with Hannibal and Person of Interest. Oh, and I'm listening to Child Lee's Die Trying and JRR Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. And I'm planning to get a new TV (40-42 inch 1080p, SmartTV?) and a gaming headset (Wireless Stereo Headset, maybe)^^ Hehe :D
I hope I can write a thing or two about games I enjoyed the last couple of weeks for me (and maybe a few of you'll read it).

about the superiority of ebooks : summaries

I'm a guy who embraces new technology and wants it to evolve.

Nutshell version:

ebooks should have a built-in summary of your reading progress.

Nushell end.

I'm really impressed with Android Wear, found MS' ideas for the One quite interesting (but too much restrictions) etc etc and I almost only read ebooks. But because I'm quite... flexible regarding my hobbies and activities I hardly ever finish a book (or anything else) without starting another one midway or playing a few more games or listening to audio books or whatever.

The third season of Games of Thrones reminded me of the fact, that I'm somewhat half through the first four books, but I have no idea where I am atm... That's quite a problem! 

So I have to read through some summaries and hope that I'll remember enough when I continue reading. Oh, and I have to stay clear of any spoilers, too...

Truth is Amazon has the position to change this and get rid of this problem while doing ebooks a great favor and giving them a undisputable reason why they are better than printed ones:
Amazon should add a "What happened so far" feature.
It's quite simple : Everytime you come back to a book you haven't read a while, it will offer you a short summary of the prequels and a more detailed one of the chapters you've already read so far in this particular book.

So what's your opinion? Would you use a summary-feature? Do you need it?

PS: Well, every ebook publisher could come up with something like that! So do it!

PPS : I have some more ideas how ebooks can evolve into something bigger than their printed brothers and silence those not believers forevermore  Guess I'll write another piece.

about SHARE button, Dreamshot and Photomode

Nutshell version:

Just my opinion, but every game needs a decent screenshot mode.

Nutshell end.

Today was a great day for me! Sucker Punch released the latest patch for their game inFAMOUS : Second Son and added a quite good photo mode: You can pause the game at almost any time, move the camera around, change some settings and put a filter on it, then press the SHARE-button and your screenshot is on its way. With a little preparation you can create nice tech demo videos and share those awesome explosions and particle effects with everyone :D

And then I remembered the Dreamshot mode in Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit (the 2010 one). I've spent literally hours creating wonderful screenshots, because the graphics were really nice and the cars were wonderful!^^ I took hundreds of pictures and got quite good at it. I even started to do it in real life and with a little help learned how to edit those, too ;P

And we all know how MS and Sony wants us to share videos and screenshots, but there is only so much they can provide us with. It's time for the devs to up their games and give us some decent screenshot tools, like right now!

I want to get pictures of glorious drifts and crashs in Need for Speed : Rivals, of wonderful kills in Killzone : Shadow Fall, of the gruesome deaths of Lara in Tomb Raider (the 2013/2014 one) and just about every epic moment in gaming, but there is no decent way...

But maybe that's for the better. I would totally spam the world with screenshots :D

Oh, here are a few ;)

Catching the Needle [inFAMOUS : Second Son]

Angry Beetle [Killzone : Shadow Fall]

Shared Sorrow [Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag]

See My Beauty [flOw]

about origami, papercraft and companion apps

Heyhey!

Nutshell version:

I hope devs put out more extra-console-ial stuff
(Tearway's papercraft, inFAMOUS' PaperTrail, AC's Initiates) to do for us gamers.

Nutshell end.

Just finished my third papercraft thingy and I'm maybe a bit too proud of it. The occasion was my mom's birthday: A few months ago she saw me playing Tearaway and found it really great. She loved the art and how the whole world was presented. When I told her that you can even build it yourself, she demanded that I'll gift her something. So I decided to do a tiger elk.

After finishing the tiger elk I realized that this was the second game this week that made me do something game related in the real world. The first was inFAMOUS : Second Son with its PaperTrail DLC.

And then companion apps came to mind: I loved the Assassin's Creed 4 app, because I could explore the lore even when I'm in university and should listen to the prof :P And talking about the Initiates-website would very likely overstretch your patience :D

For me gaming is more than just a hobby. It's part of my identity. And therefore it is great for me to somehow carry my gaming life (normally sealed away in some tech cube) into the "normal" world out there :D

I really hope that this will continue and let us expand our gamer-us into the world out there more ;)

Oh, and I guess it's a good way to start a conversation with guest, when they see origami figures with strange numbers and tiger elks in my living room ;)

So see ya.

Next blog post will be about gaming inspired clothing or Sly : Thieves in Time.

my gamer april 2014

A monthly preview of my gamer life, huh? Lucky me, April 2014 is going to be a pretty good month gamer-wise :)

Nutshell version for lazy people:

I'm gonna play Jak & Dexter, Soul Sacrifice, Sly Cooper, Gravity Rush and maybe buy Persona 4 or Dargon's Crown on Vita. On PS4 it's gonna be inFAMOUS, Assassin's Creed IV and Killzone.

Nutshell end.

Let's start with the little things in life like my PS Vita

I have a few games that I want to finish this month and there are a few I'm really interested in (which will keep me from finishing the first mentioned, but that's how it is).

First and foremost there is Jak & Daxter : The Precursor Legacy. Why that's so important? Jak II : Renegade was my very first PS2 game (There was actually a game I bought earlier, but I can't remember it anymore and Jak II was the first game that I played or tbh starred at.) and it is really really overdue to play the prequel :D I've got the trilogy, but I'll do it by the book and play them the order they were released in.

Second there is Soul Sacrifice which is really good, but atm there are a lot other games, so I play SS one or two contracts at a time. My fault, cause I'm to easily distracted by other games...

Sly Cooper : Thieves in Time! That's another game I'm so itching for, because I played Sly 2 : Band of Thieves and I loved it! Somehow never got to play Sly Raccoon or Sly 3 : Honor Among Thieves, but that's what the Sly-trilogy is here for (queue for May) ;)

Gravity Rush was the first game I started on my Vita and the only reason I haven't finished it is that I have only 8 gigs of storage and Killzone : Mercenary wanted some space... Time to finish it^^

Maybe I'll get Persona 4 : The Golden or Dragon's Crown this month. I need a good (J)RPG in my collection!

Now about this glorious piece of tech I bought day one last year: my PlayStation 4

There are a few games I want to play this month and maybe an indie or two will join the party spontaneously.

There is, of course, the beautiful superpowered inFAMOUS : Second Son. I've got platinum and had a lot of fun in these 40h and even without those nice PaperTrail missions I'd come back. I can't wait to follow the leads I dug up at brunbergdetectiveagency.com :) I want to turn into paper so much (Konan, anyone?)^^

Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag is also fighting for my attention (and it has some very good moves). There is like only one trophy left (All Rounder) and multiplayer is a lot of fun. No shame in clocking a few more hours and most players are not feeling the need to run across the map in a blood thirsty frenzy *cough* CoD kiddies *cough* and disturb your great hide and seek game, so why not^^

Killzone : Shadow Fall's Insurgent DLC sounds like fun, so spending a few bucks on it shouldn't be a problem. Maybe I should get the Season Pass? Hm, maybe.

Woah. Almost forgot Child of Light, but that's so late in April I'll talk about it in May.

So that's it for the moment. If you actually read all this (Weird stuff happens all days, so why not?) leave a comment below and tell me what you think ;)

I've also got a twitter lately and retweet a lot of stuff happening in the gaming world.

See ya, maybe :D

PS: Just got FEZ for PS4, Vita etc via Cross Buy^^

Watch_Dogs - about trailer, devs and fans

You probably heard about it: THE GRAFFICKS TOTALLY SUXS IN WATCH_DGOS!1!

Nutshell version:

People still complaining are having a trust issue with the devs.

Nutshell end.

Why all the angry voices?

A lot of people were super hyped for Watch_Dogs since the very first trailer in 2012 and I can totally unterstand that - I was one of them. The whole thing was the manifested dream of next gen: the graphics, the gameplay, the interactivity, the endless possibilities. We were ready to believe that this is how PS4 and One games are gonna be and boy, were we believing.

Cut to 2014: After a very sudden delay and a long wait (really, like forever) Ubisoft released the Story trailer and people were both happy to see a release date again and shocked at the downgrade the graphics had to suffer.

So not so optimistic and trusting people felt like their next gen dream was getting a massive kick in the face and was left to die in the alley. I can understand that.

So what actually happened?

Isn't that the question of the day? Well, actually No, it isn't.

Truth is in the first 24 hours after the trailer they held a Q&A at twitch.tv and answered that very question about the downgrade. Okay, to be fair he answered like a real politician, but here's what I think he says in a nutshell: "We focused on showing you more about the story and the motivation behind Aiden's actions, but we had some really weird bugs. So we had to tone it down to get a bug free trailer. We never thought that people would go so crazy about this downgrade. Holy shit."

I'm no insider, but if I think about how all the simulations and different systems work together and influence each other, I can imagine that when there are bugs they can bring down a lot easily. A lot of this next gen feeling the graphics in the previous trailer had came from the complex simulations and systems that created the wind, the different shaders, shock waves after explosions, soft body physics, reflections and so on. Imagine having a really nasty bug somewhere deep in the physics engine. That could create some weird stuff in the aforementioned systems.

But that was not the only answer. There are literally hundreds of articles and stuff about this very questions with actual answers! If you add all the information together we got through official twitter channels, interviews, articles and videos we can agree that there are a lot of answers and almost every question ever asked was answered (except that final resolution on the One-thing, but hey, we all now it's not gonna be 1080p).

So why are all those people still angry?

Now I've talked to a few people here and there and in the end it's just a trust issue.

That is not actually a bad thing in general, because we get fucked over a lot of times, but in this very case I have a very positive feeling. I really do believe Jonathan Morin (and the shitload of articles from independent people saying the very same thing). He loves his game and he truly wants to deliver exactly what he promised us. That's why they needed more time and that's what we will get in less than two months.

Wanna know more? I can dig out a lot of articles and answers. You just have to ask me ;)

Links:
PS4 devkit footage showcasing the graphics and simulations behind Watch_Dogs (tweet by Jonathan Morin)

organizational #1

Yeah. Obviously I'm in the middle of figuring out how to do this, so don't mind design changes that vanish suddenly and stuff :D

The preview of April 2014 is in the making and my gamer-me is so looking forward :)

obligatory "first post" post

Hi there!

So who's me?
I'm a very vivid gamer and spend probably too much time playing all kinds of games. I'm also a christian, consuming almost all kinds of media (anime, manga, ebooks, printed books, audio books, series, movies, music, comic books, web comics, different websites and blogs), studying physics and... oh, yeah, being married, too :D FYI 23m.

What can you expect from me?
Previews of what my gamer-me is expecting every month, thoughts about games I play or plan to play, thoughts about what's going on in the gamer world, maybe some christian thoughts about games etc or physics stuff from time to time.

Why the fuck am I going to blog about all this, though no one is ever going to read it?
Yeah, I just wanted to do a sort of diary for myself, but hey, why not blog? :D

See ya!