Category: Editorials

The Fifth Rule of Game Buyer’s Club: ALWAYS talk about Game Buyer’s Club.

This is long and ranty.  But I feel that it is important.

You guys absolutely got the industry you wanted.

We got here through slow degrees.  Like the proverbial frog in the pot - although, it didn't actually seem that way to begin with.  So, very quickly, let's talk about the divide between modern games and how they monetize and older games and how those raked in the money.

In the bad old days, a game was a once-off experience - for the most part.  You bought the game, it had absolutely all the content on the disk and off you went.  This wasn't absolutely universal, of course - even back then we had what were known as "Scenario Disks" and added content through content builders - Things like the Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures construction kit.

But if you bought a game you would be assured of ALL the content.  At least until a scenario disk/expansion pack rolled around.  There was no messing around with day one DLC [a misnomer, but we'll get there] or very many "added content exclusives."  The game you took home was - generally - the same game your European friends took home on the day of release.

Then, Bethesda cracked open the door through Horse Armor and everything changed.

But it's important to realize an important thing about this whole fiasco:  we can't go back.  We can't stuff the genie back into the bottle.  But we can maybe make executives think twice about fleecing us.

Read more

Gateway Review: The Subtle Art Of Waiting For Things To Happen

I quite like reading.  I quite like adventure gaming.  So the best of both of those worlds has got to be text adventures, right?  Well.  Sort of.  If the writing is smart and the characters are clever then text adventures can - absolutely - paint marvellous pictures in your mind - the kind graphics engines simply don't have the oomph to render, but the problem with text adventures is that they're sometimes obtuse.  The writing can be fantastic and the game world and characters can be completely memorable - both good reasons to start playing text adventures today [because modern text adventures tend to double down on both those things] but...

...the puzzles.  Dear God, the puzzles.

And that's why I kind of like the design intent behind Gateway.  Gateway sort of understands this problem. Read more

Witcher 3: Blood and Wine is Closely Approaching – Updated May 31st Release Date Announced

Original Posting: May 3rd

Well guys, CD Projekt Red is releasing the newest and final expansion for Witcher 3 pretty soon. It was originally stated that it would arrive in the first half of 2016. I for one am looking very forward to it and I've been holding off on playing the Hearts of Stone expansion because I want to go back to back on both stories. More information is coming on May 10th and I'll try to update this article as soon as I learn more.

This latest expansion is called Blood and Wine, and it will take Geralt and Roach to the seemingly peaceful lands of Toussaint; a place where the war has yet to reach, but hides a "bloody secret". Toussaint is said to be as big as all of the Skellige Isles combined and promises to provide us fans with an addition 20 hours of play time with new creatures and quests and even a new Gwent deck.

Blood and Wine will mark the finale of the Witcher as a whole and it looks to be as fine a way to do so as any. Speaking of series finales, this one will probably be one of the only things that gets me away from Dark Souls 3 for a while, until it's expansion content comes around later this year anyway.

It'll be released on all supported platforms at the same time, thank god, no bullshit timed exclusivity purchase that comes with a useless hat or some such nonsense. Now to wait for Cyberpunk 2077 and see if Yoda0vgs and I have speculated correctly that Ciri has some involvement there.

Update: May 10th

The official release date for Blood and Wine is confirmed to be May 31st. It's also said that this final expansion will add an extra 30 hours to the game, approximately, through the main and side quest lines. You can also expect to a new "point of interest" system and it sounds like Geralt will even get a house to live in.

Of course if you own the Witcher 3 season pass, you'll just get your copy when it's released at the end of this month. If you didn't participate in a season pass, then you can buy a digital copy separately for $19.99. Or if you prefer, you'll also be able to get ahold of a physical copy for $29.99 that will include the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard, Gwent decks along with a game guide and Gwent tokens to use while you play. The physical copy is supposedly a limited edition so grab one while you can I suppose, even though I'm fairly sure the chances of running out of boxed copies is slim.

This is supposed to be Geralt's last Witcher game. Maybe that means some time in the future we'll see Ciri get her own Witcher title, maybe? Or perhaps it's over forever. In any case it's been a blast and I for one have been looking forward to Blood and Wine since I first heard about it. Gonna be great I'm sure.

Here's a quick teaser to get your Witcher Senses tingling.

Farewell, Blizzard

Warning!  This is long and ranty and link heavy!  [Links will open in new tabs]

I remember Silicon and Synapse.  You might not, but I do.  They weren't big enough to work on their own projects, so they did ports of other games to various other consoles.  None of these ports were particularly big, but they established the company as detail-oriented and good at what they did.  And a key element from those days has stayed with Blizzard:  they know how to refine.

Which is at least some of what I want to talk about.  But the other thing I want to talk about is how distant Silicon and Synapse are from the Blizzard we have today and why - after almost twenty five years of playing Blizzard's games, I am going to slowly start winding down Blizzard projects I'm still pursuing. Read more

The Murky Rise Of Tabletop Simulators

I played a lot of Magic:  The Gathering when it came out.

Like.

A lot.

From 1994 onward, I attended weekly events, playtested in a group for competitions I would enter, played against the computer when the Microprose product came out and poured over lists of cards as they were released to find new strategies for old decks and to see if there were any interesting brand new plans I could utilize.

Before that, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons.

Like.

A lot, too.

From 1985 until I lost my gaming group to the vagaries of time commitments [Exams, jobs, families and the like] I played the Red Box, made characters under the Second Edition rules, built up a campaign for friends that ended in hilarious disaster when someone lit a torch in an underground zone that was nothing but propane gas and tended my Beast in long-standing games of Vampire:  The Masquerade.

The point is, I really like board, card and role playing games.

The problem is, of course, that these games are difficult to play without friends.  I am primarily an introvert.  I have few friends. Read more

My Review of Dark Souls 3, and Why I Love the Series

I love Dark Souls

Maybe it's a latent masochistic part of me who likes this sort of punishing and unforgiving game play, maybe it's the fact that nowadays games are so full of assistance and hand holding that they basically play themselves, but there's something about this series that grabs me and won't let go. Admittedly the Dark Souls 1 PC port was a travesty that was only really even playable with a fan made patch, but I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to a series. When I started hearing about Dark Souls 2 I was glued to news sites trying to learn as much as possible, and even though it had a different director I loved it. I've been anticipating Dark Souls 3 since I first learned about it, and I'll probably play it for as long as it's up and running. I've never played Demon Souls and I don't have a PS4 so I haven't played Bloodborne, but I'd love to change those things as well.

I've been playing, and dying repeatedly in Dark Souls 3 now for over 100 hours and I feel like I can finally get my thoughts down. Continue further for my review and thoughts on the series in general. Read more

Calling all Space Marines

Some more Dawn of War badassery has been announced. Produced by Relic Entertainment, the same folks originally that gave us Space Marine (Now owned by Sega) this will be Dawn of War 3. The new installment claims to involve Orbital Lasers and various giant units. Just check out the trailer here on the official website. You'll have to provide some age verification to get in.

No release date yet, but by creating a Relic Account you can receive your own updates about the game, and there are even hints at rewards for doing so. Looks like a cool one I think. So far it looks to only be a PC title, but who knows? That could change.