For instance, in a MMO when you press the “D” key turn your character to the right and it takes several seconds before the toon responds. That my friends is lag.

But more times than not the lag is caused at your end, not the servers where your MMO is located. When you are the only one in a group suffering from lag, chances are the lag is on your end. This can be due to a number of underlying issues, such as you connection between you and your ISP or between your ISP and the game server. Most of the time it is not the game that is suffering from lag, but your connection is causing the lag.

I am so tired of Lag Fags, the lame players of (enter title of your favorite mmo here), who are always crying about lag. The same goes for Youtube.com. I had a comment by a viewer of one my machinimas on youtube.com complaining of the lag for my video. WTF, dumbass? The video is not laggy, you just have a shitty ISP. I am not hosting the video file youtube.com is, so complain to them or your ISP.

How many times have you heard this or similar rant in chat or on vent? “Your lowly level 70 Orc Frilly Dressmaker only killed my awesome level 85 Dual Turd Wielding Rectal Ranger, because of Lag, dude! They should call this game World of Lagcraft”

Sure, maybe lag did help kill your fecal fighter, but all too often it is just an excuse for your piss poor, noobish gaming skills.

Cures for Lag:

1. Get a good ISP who has plenty of bandwidth per user.

2. Try not to play on overcrowded servers.

3. Ping test servers to see response time.

4. Try and play on servers that are geographically close to you. The old adage of the shortest distance between two points is a straight line holds true for gaming servers. Shorter distance = less lag.

So in short, stop whining about lag! Unless I hear a half dozen or more players in chat complaining about server lag, I will always assume you are a Lag Fag and either are using lag as a phantom excuse or the lag is at your end. In either case I don’t care. So STFU and play or go play with your new Wii game “Prance, Prance Revolution”.

While playing Fallen Earth in August I noticed a lot of people talking about switching to SWTOR if after Fallen Earth goes to Free2Play and it gets crappy. Now, I am Star Wars movies fan, but not huge Star Wars video game enthusiast. Too many marginal titles and releases from the Star Wars franchise over the years. I was kind of excited back when they came out their first MMORPG with Star Wars Galaxies, until I played it and was severely let down. So, I had figured the SWTOR was just an expansion of ‘Galaxies.

I just heard too many people hyping SWTOR that I became curious. I saw where you could get a beta key for SWTOR from IGN.com if you bought a year of IGN Prime. Not worth the money. Just out of curiosity I wondered if my old friends at mmorpg.com were giving out keys. They were and I snagged one. I signed up at the SWTOR site and waited for the invitation. In the meantime I watched all six Star Wars movies and The Clone Wars cartoon, and pretty much everything Star Wars except the Retarded Ewok Adventure.

So Friday at 10am when the servers went live, I logged in without a problem. I picked an East Coast PVE server called Mind Trick. I built my character, a Male Human Smuggler. Shortly into the game I got a companion, Corso Riggs. Riggs is the first companion character for the Smuggler class. He helps you fight and craft. Yes, craft.

The game itself has decent graphics and mechanics, but what sets this game a part is the in depth story and rich npc dialogue. All in all my time in the SWTOR was very fun and engrossing.

For a beta this is the cleanest beta I have ever seen and cleaner than some mainstream MMOs. The bugs I encountered in the 4 day span

1. Junk pile nodes (harvested for crafting) often did not work.

2. Autoloot would fail at random times and would only work again after logout and log back in.

3. Map would lose all tracking info and I would either have to travel to a new area or logout/login to fix the map.

4. Not really a bug, but I had troubles with turning my toon left and right (using default A and D keys). There seemed to be a huge lag between pressing the key and the toon actually moving. This should be fixable in mouse acceleration settings.

The servers were pretty much full on Friday and Saturday with up to an hour of waiting in a queue before getting to play. At some point I think early Sunday they added more servers. They did a stress test of everyone accessing the knowledge base at once. That test did fail. There were very few times where any lag was noticeable.

Based on the beta the game is ready to go live. If you pre-order the game you get Early Game Access and can start playing on 12/15/2011 (the same day Star Wars Galaxies turns it’s servers off), 5 days before the official launch on 12/20/2011 (my birthday).

I hate to say this but I think I will be playing this from launch until a long time in the future. My only fear is a game that cost $300 million to produce will need make money to keep going on for years. That will be a big nut to crack (of course World of Warcraft is sucking down $150 million a month, just in subscription fees).

The game will appeal to a huge segment of gamers from casual to hardcore. I prefer PVE to PVP and did not get a chance to really test PVP in this Beta, so I make no claims one way or the other for the PVP game play quality. Too many MMORPG lack the RPG part. This game really immerses you in your role. From reading comments the usual negative is that this is just WOW with lightsabers. I totally disagree. All MMORPGs will have some elements of WOW. This game has pulled great ideas from a spectrum of games. For instance the relationships and choices remind me of Dragon Age.

I got my Smuggler to Level 17 and it is a shame he dies with the beta. I am sure there will be some sort of free trial once the game goes live, so if you like rpgs or Star Wars or both you should at least give this game a look.

To see some actual game play watch the sapphire haired hottie “Pokket’s” Top 10 reasons to play SWTOR

If you played MMO Fallen Earth this week you most likely did a lot of “standing by” waiting to be able to log back into the game. Well it has been just over a week since Fallen Earth (recently acquired by GamersFirst went to a Free2Play format. One would expect the usual amount of hiccups due the huge influx Dumpster Diver players (see my post on the new F2P subscriptions post). I have stayed out of area S1 (This is the geographical place that people start the game) since October 12 to avoid the mongol hordes. Without giving you a blow by blow description of the downtime accrued over the last 7 days (You can read the Fallen Earth team’s description of their issues here). Now like a lot of players I appreciate that they seem to be working hard to restore and fix the servers, however they have done a terrible job of managing the expectations and keeping players informed. The paid players are the ones getting the shaft and no compensation. Well they did add 1 day to everyone’s subscription, which is worthless to a paid subscription player. On the bright side when the game is running correctly it is one of the best MMO’s out there.

So after dreadfully long outage and fix on October 18th, we were informed no maintenance would be done on October 19. Well here were are on October 20 at 9:22 AM PDT and why did I decide to write this now, well as you can guess the server is down again for another multi-hour outage to conduct yet another patch. Many paid players and I am sure new players who can’t even get a character going due to constant outages, are rapidly growing tired of the unplayablity of the servers. Honestly most people don’t care why it’s not working or what server is failing for what reason, they just want the game fixed and working. But at least when the game is down you should be giving us timely  updates on the repair/maintenance issue at hand.

This is not a beta. These types of issues that keep going on and on are inexcusable. GamersFirst fix your game soon or it will become abandoned even by hard core Fallen Earth players. My guess if Fallout Online were to come out today(no matter how buggy it was) it would be the death of Fallen Earth. It would be sad to lose such a great game to poor IT abilities or decisions.

My call to action:

Free players – Wait until they fix the major issues to start playing.

Paid Players – Keep on playing when you can and keep pressure on GamersFirst to finally fix the issues and give some worthwhile items for these players who have paid, but can’t play.

GamersFirst – Fix this or Fallen Earth dies! Also take care of your loyal paid players. Change your name to “GamersFist” if you are going to continue to give us gamers a fisting.

Ok, at 10AM PDT on their Facebook page they announce the “Server is up. Have fun”. Except for the last 40 minutes and counting no one can log in.

Finally in at 10:59 PDT. But for how long?

See you in the wasteland!

Buccaneer Dan.

There will be 4 subscription levels (GamersFirst claims this is almost final and any changes will be minor)

Click for Full Size!

1. Scavenger. Appropriately named, of course I would have called it “Dumpster Diver“. This of course is a free account and the default starting level for new accounts. This is for new players or players who have left and want to see the improvements (which are numerous. I just started playing again about a month ago after being a Beta tester 2 years ago. The game is drastically better, quite polished and super fun). Surprisingly these players will have full access to the game from level 1 to 55 (current level cap) and beyond. There are limitations on how many chips (the in game currency is poker chips) and how many hours of crafting you can do each day and the crafting rate is slower. The main reason is to keep gold farming impact to a minimum and of course to get you to upgrade if you really like the game and want to spend a lot of time in it. For the new player, casual gamer or 45 year old guy living in his grandmother’s basement this account is perfect.

2. Survivalist. The first level of premium membership. For $9.99 you will get the same level of perks that we subscribers currently get paying $14.99 a month. I see this as a popular option. After playing a few weeks and deciding this is a good game for you, this will be your natural upgrade. It will lift the Scavenger restrictions and get you out of the dumpster. This will also give you fasting crafting times and more Reward Points a month (you can buy really cool stuff in game with reward points, so the more you can get, the better).

3. Wastelander. This costs $14.99 a month (the pre-Free2Play normal subscription price). This subsripton offers greatly improved speeds for crafting and harvesting, plus increased rates for  EXP, AP, Death Toll, and Faction points. If you are a player who spends a lot of time in Fallen Earth or you are a heavy crafter/gatherer this is probably the option you want to take.

You also get a 15% discount in the Marketplace and 300 Reward Points (versus the current paltry 100 Reward Points you already get with a subscription). Note: If you have an existing active Fallen Earth subscription, it will automatically transition to Wastelander on October 12. You of course can upgrade or downgrade from there.

4. Commander. This level due to it’s expense is best for super hard core players who help out other players or are guild leaders or officers and do a lot of group functions. At $29.99 a month most people will pass on this subscription as you could have 2 Wastelander accounts for the same price. What makes the Commander subscription unique is player gets the ‘Commander Aura”, a stackable buff that increases salvaging speed, EXP, Random AP, Death Toll, and Faction gain rates for all players in the Commander’s group. You also get a huge 500 Reward Points per month. Going forward I am sure any respectable clan leader will be expected to have this subscription.

The other big question I hear a lot from new players is if they start playing on the 14 day trial and then stop when the trial ends, will they be able to pickup where they left off when the game goes F2P in October. The answer is YES! So if you want to see what this very cool game is all about play the trial today. Trial players are limited to Level 10 and can’t trade with other players (this an anti-gold farming feature, not a punishment). If you are in the game look for me Buccaneer Dan I can help you get started and answer questions (and even give some right answers). Right now Fallen Earth has only 1 main server (Alec Masters), so I am easy to find.

We like Fallen Earth so much we are thinking of making a dedicated section on GamePirates.

See you in the Wasteland!

Buccaneer Dan

In Battlefield 3 you are an Elite Marine that is sent to varying locations such as France, Iran, and the streets of New York City. There is intense action forcing players to their bellies. The battlefields are more diverse and interactive than any previous Battlefield titles. The game is now in Alpha testing and getting ready for Beta testing. The commercial release is due out October 25, 2011

I have been an Alpha and a Beta tester on many games over the years. Each one of those required the tester to sign a confidentiality agreement and forbids the testers from releasing any information on the game being tested. Although companies sometimes release footage from Betas & Alphas as a teaser, somehow I don’t think this is the case here as Digital Illusions CE (DICE), the game’s’ developer has strict tester rules. There is truly no honor among geeks. A few days ago GameSpy had posted a series of unauthorized YouTube videos on the game (They have since been removed). I wonder if any Alpha testers work for GameSpy? Just a thought. DICE made some outstanding new mechanics for BF3, which will drastically change your strategies for gameplay. So seeing how the cat is out of the bag, so let’s take a look.

The Return of the Prone.

Yes the game is will have slithering on your belly like a snake in the grass and laying down on the job. This will certainly slow down the speed of assaults. If you have the urge to stand up and with assault weapon at the ready, burst through doors yelling “Sempre Fi, Motherfuckers” you will be quickly awarded the Purple Heart………Posthumously! To combat unrealistic advantages while you in the prone position, some new things will happen, first your crosshairs will expand, reducing accuracy. Also there will be a delay in hitting the ground and then being able to shoot (this makes the old tactic of “Dolphin Diving” a useless venture. Sorry Flipper).

The Art of Suppression

Suppressive fire adds a new dimension to the game. For the player receiving suppressive fire your hip shots will suffer a penalty until you get your bearings. When you hear bullets whizzing past your head it will be a very wise move not to pop up for view. For the player laying down the suppressive fire it will earn you suppression points even if your team mate makes the kill shot. This will make pinning your opponents down with LMG fire an excellent tactic to you use throughout the game.

Sharks with Frickin’ Laser Beams Attached to Their Heads

Well, not sharks, but laser sights. Laser sights now can momentarily blind your opponents. The downside is when an enemy sees the bounce of red laser light they know it’s time to dive for cover. Besides and under barrel laser, an under barrel flashlight is also available. Inside dark tunnels a flashlight is a huge advantage and it to can blind enemies. It to can be a bad thing in open areas it is like a giant shining beacon screaming “Shoot Here!”.

But I Already Have A Middle Leg

Many weapons now come with a built in bi-pod. Using the bi-pod offers more stability and less kick from the weapon, which lets you go to town with weapons like the Type 88 LMG. Everything in this game comes with a price. With bipod engaged you have a limited shooting arc of 90 degrees or so. It also takes extra time to fold the bi-pod up and run when you need to beat feet out of an overrun area.

DICE Gives Us Mack the Knife, Lookout He’s Back in Town.

Ok, so no one reading this gets the old song reference from the original “Rock ‘n Roll Heaven”, but what you do get in BF3 is the ability to use a knife as a primary weapon. Reminding me of the adage of never bring a knife to gunfight. The quick knife option is also still available. The Alpha still has some animation issues, which I am sure, will be quickly fixed. When you knife a dude who is lying on the ground he will stand up before the death animation starts playing.

Can I Play the Beta

According to the developer’s blog, there will be an open Beta in September (the current Alpha is closed which means by invitation only). It looks like the Medal of Honor: Limited Edition game owners will get first crack at the Beta, followed by the rest of the rabble who want to play. Hopefully the pre-orders of BF3 will also get early priority access to the Beta.

If someone has some video please embed to the GamePirates video section or upload to Vpirates.com and I will post them here. Below is a video from some Eastern European Alpha testers.

]]> http://gamepirates.net/?feed=rss2&p=22359 0 http://gamepirates.net/?p=22359 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Gamepiratesnet/~3/p3ASj3u4Kcg/ http://gamepirates.net/?p=22741#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 02:33:38 +0000 buccaneerdan http://gamepirates.net/?p=22741 Red Dead Redemption Myths & Mavericks DLC

So I made a call to Rockstar Games the other day (I know a dude, who knows a dude). I wanted to know about 3 things. First when will we see new DLC for Red Dead Redemption, when will we see Red Dead Redemption 2 and when will we see a PC version? Well my contact was about as open as welded vault door. First the good news. In September Crackwhore, err, I mean Rockstar is releasing the a new DLC (that’s Down Loadable Content for you noobs) for Dead Read Redemption called “Myth and Mavericks Bonus Pack”. The number one cool thing is that it is free! It will feature 8 new characters and new multi-level maps for Grab the Bag, Death Match, Gang Matches and Circle Jerk (ok, I made the last one up). Also there is a rumor of a new weapon being introduced, but alas from what I could weasel out of the dude, no lasso for multi-player. They are also going to release a tweak to Undead Overrun mode and we should see that released before Myth and Mavericks (so that could mean any day now). The bottom line is Myths and Mavericks is great for multi-player junkies. For us PVE addicts this just adds insult to injury.

So Where’s Red Dead Redemption 2 (or whatever you want to call the sequel)?

Another slap down? Although he would not comment on if or when a new Read Dead sequel will see the light of day, he did comment that there were many ideas left over after the completion of Read Dead Redemption (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). For those of you who don’t know, Red Dead Redemption is actually a sequel to Rockstar’s Original Read Dead Revolver. Revolver however was not near the game Redemption is. You have to ask yourself one question punk, with a total of over 8 million units of ‘Redemption sold to date, why would they not make another sequel? We can assume it is coming once sales of L.A. Noire die down and any other titles in front of it begin to slump in sales. Rockstar like other game producers try and pace their releases for maximum effect. I would wager we will see one more main title from them for the Christmas buying season.

Please Sir, give us a Controller Challenged Gamers PC Version!

And the question most near and dear to my heart the where’s PC version? First of all Rockstar gambled for whatever reason; marketing costs, production costs, distribution costs, etc., to not include a PC version in the initial release of Read Dead Redemption. To date the sales numbers for Red Dead Redemption: Xbox 360 – 4,363,028 units and PS3 – 3,893,320 units. The Red Dead franchise is Rockstar’s number 2 all-time best seller (behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise). Although I could not find verifiable PC sale numbers for L.A. Noire (Rockstar’s latest release which includes Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions), I am sure the PC is lagging far behind the consoles in sales. They say the PC version is coming. If that is true they will wait until those sales taper off before even thinking about launching a new Red Dead title.

So if you’re a multiplayer enjoy the new DLC Myths and Mavericks when it hits in September. For us poor PVE and/or PC gamers the only pack we are getting is you know where. I guess will just have to hold our breath and wait. Thanks for reading.

]]> http://gamepirates.net/?feed=rss2&p=22741 1 http://gamepirates.net/?p=22741 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Gamepiratesnet/~3/YUv82hS6w38/ http://gamepirates.net/?p=22011#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:53:30 +0000 buccaneerdan http://gamepirates.net/?p=22011 Portal 2 Game has Adoption Controversy? No, Grow Up! Ok, I have not played Portal 2 as it is not my cup of tea, but I saw a Youtube clip today of “news story” (if you can call it that.) from WBTV in Charlotte, North  Carolina, which brings up the alleged Portal 2 controversy. What is the flap about?  Well it seems some blowhard is crying fowl over basically a cartoon character in the game saying “Alright fatty, fatty, adopted fatty, fatty, fatty no parents”.

The complaint is generated by the father of an adopted kid, who was outraged by the comments insensitivity toward adopted kids. WTF! First the fact a TV station would do a story on this is beyond ridiculous. During the clip all 3 news casters in the story chime in sharing in the outrage (more commonly known as creating an issue for ratings). I was only surprised that large woman of color doing the story did not try to drag in the comments were offensive to fat people and bordered on racism.

The father in the story incorrectly states the video game was rated “E” (for Everyone)”, when in fact the game is rated “E 10+” (Everyone 10+). Here is exactly what that means: E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older. Titles in this category may contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes.). The comments and chiding by the character are all part of the game’s harmless dialogue which is very tame and is only meant be add humor to the game. I am so tired of these Namby-Pamby whiners grandstanding on every issue that comes along. Sorry Andy Warhol, these people do not deserve their 15 minutes of fame.

To put the comments in perspective the adoption quote is on par with the other Reindeers in the classic “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, teasing the Rudolph about his nose or the Peanuts kids in “Charlie Brown Christmas” teasing Charlie brown about the tree he picked out or countless other examples. The joke is always on the party making the comments as the recipient of insults goes on to accomplish great things in life. My examples are “G” rated (game equivalent is “E” for everyone) titles. Or does uber outraged dad think there should be a warning on the box “Caution: Jokes about fat and/or adopted kid enclosed in game dialogue. Parents Beware!”

My requests are simple. First when your news channels and other forms of dying main stream media have no news to report, it is not your job to go out and manufacture the news (You might want to change your station call letters to “wB.S.tv”). Parents if you don’t want your kids to hear anything offensive no matter how mild it may be don’t let them watch T.V., go to school, play video games, interact with friends, listen to music or read books. These are the same kind of people who create “Peanut Free Zones” due to the fact there haploid children may be allergic to peanuts and they want a 500 foot peanut dust buffer from your kids PB&J sandwich. I am so tired of these “Do Gooders” speaking out. STFU! If you don’t want your adopted kid to play this horribly offensive game, then don’t buy it. If the game companies should be required to warn you in advance of every possible thing that may offend you, then you should be required to have “DUMBASS” tattooed across your forehead so we know in advance you have nothing relevant to say.

Valve (the studio that created Portal 2) as of this writing had not responded to WBTV and their request for comments. Hopefully they will not comment at all and let the sales of the game do the talking. Of course the fact that this story came out of North Carolina is not a big surprise. This the place where (cue the dueling banjos music) they burn bibles if they are not the King James Edition and people see images of Jesus in Kudzu vines on utility poles. “You is a gamer? I tell you mister the only game we play ‘round these parts is “Cornhole” (not what you think, I had to Google it). Thanks for reading!

You can check the news clip out here

]]> http://gamepirates.net/?feed=rss2&p=22011 0 http://gamepirates.net/?p=22011 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Gamepiratesnet/~3/UqvOZW5zixI/ http://gamepirates.net/?p=21964#comments Sun, 17 Jul 2011 05:26:28 +0000 buccaneerdan http://gamepirates.net/?p=21964 Today video games are dominated by a few main varieties. I call like to call these “Feed the Peasant Games” (Age of Empires III), “Shooter Games” (Call of Duty: Black Ops), Platform Games (Donkey Kong), Sports Simulations (Madden 12 Football) and Role Playing Games (Dragon Age: Origins).  Adventure Games (Alice Madness Returns) were a once popular genre, but now are almost forgotten. Sure there are some more styles and countless combinations of these types, but most fall into some predictable bracket.  Catherine is for the most part is an Adventure Game.

If you recently read my article “Packing the Fudge in Your Game and Taking a Byte of Video Game Relationships” (you can read it here on GamePirates.net if have not read it yet), I point out that some video games are moving in a direction of relationship building and interactive love affairs. Well Catherine, a new title from Altus sure hits the mark in this regard. The story revolves around Vincent a 30ish computer programmer during the day and at night when not sleeping he hangs out at his favorite bar (The Stray Sheep). Vincent has a girlfriend named Katherine (yes with a “K”), who is a kind of a bitching shrew even though she seems well intentioned. She is pushing him towards marriage and he is not sure if this is what he really wants. To throw a monkey wrench in his decision, he meets a much different type of girl named Catherine (spelled this time with a “C”).  She is young, beautiful, very exciting and all about fun. She ends up spending the night with Vincent. Now poor Vincent is in a quandary about his relationships. This causes him to have some horrible nightmares filled with sheep who want to kill him in real life.

Your time in the game is separated between Vincent’s time in his dreams, where you must complete increasingly more difficult puzzles and time in the bar talking with your friends and moving the plot along. The ideas are fresh here on the story side of the game. This is not your dad’s style of adventure game. Here you will discover two unusual video game issues, fidelity and fear of commitment.

The soundtrack and graphics are excellent and enhance the gameplay.  Personally, I did not care for the Japanamation style characters that look like they are right out of a “Speed Racer” cartoon, but thank God no Chim-Chim is included.  The dream sequences are a series of the same puzzle that get more difficult and the game moves forward. These puzzles are not my cup of tea and some players will be turned off the difficulties they present.

Your time spent in the bar (The Castrated Goat or whatever it is called) is the main part of the story is well setup up and a joy to play. In these sequences you converse with your friends and unravel the events in your life moving toward an answer to your problems. There is moral compass included in the game to keep you in tuned to decision process. This feature surely sets up an alternate replay of the game based on new decisions.

Things I liked: Soundtrack, smooth graphics and cut scenes, original storyline, moral compass and fresh new characters. And unlike recent piles of crap like Duke Nukem Forever, there is a great free demo you can play to see if you want to invest in the full game.

Things I did not like: The repetitive platform style puzzle game. Although I like anime, 3d modeled characters would have been a much better choice. The game is clearly a Japanese game translated into English, but no matter how many Western names are introduced the game is culturally aligned with Japan. And so far the title is only available for the PS3 and Xbox 360. So where is the PC version for us controller challenged gamers?

This title may look like a cartoon, but it is certainly not for kids. The themes are very adult and carry the following warning: Blood, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol, and Violence. The title is rated M for good reason. On some message board Catherine is panned because it is not a porno. So if you are an 18 year old jack off, skip this game and go right to Youporn for some explicit Hentai.

All in all Catherine is a good, refreshing title which offers relationship issues and choices, action and drama. I rate it a 3.5 (on a 1 to 5 scale).  Videos of Catherine can be found at GamePirates Forum Video Area thanks to power user Susan Lancaster. So check it and let us know what you think!

]]> http://gamepirates.net/?feed=rss2&p=21964 0 http://gamepirates.net/?p=21964 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Gamepiratesnet/~3/PcWRwDFXMkc/ http://gamepirates.net/?p=21800#comments Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:59:51 +0000 buccaneerdan http://gamepirates.net/?p=21800 Regardless of it being straight or gay, more games are allowing romantic relationships. Is this only the beginning or has it already gone over the top?

Ok, no flaming emails or comments, I used the title just to grab your attention. I am not a gay basher. Recently I read a superb article on GameSpy titled “Putting the Gay in Games: The Industry’s Evolving Attitudes Toward Sexuality” by Lara Crigger and it set me thinking pertaining to relationships in modern games.

Recently my real life babe was playing with Dragon Age: Origins (for the 5th time through) and I spotted that her girl alter ego was romantically taken up with Leliana. Now in real life she is straight as a board. To bring things into perspective, in this go through she was only an immense tease to poor unsatisfied Leliana who never was allowed to end up in bed with her girlfriend. My sweetheart was appalled when I was playing Dragon Age and my male hero was sleeping with both Leliana and Morrigan (I was making use of game moss that provide graphic sex scenes and this most likely had something to do with her rage). Those mods are only provided for the PC version and can be found at Dragon Age Nexus (adults only please). I had to justify in detail, when I was made to pick why did I prefer Leliana over Morrigan. So what on earth was my answer to her inquisition? I asserted, “Because Leliana appears to look way more like you”. She was impressed with my answer. I am happy I did not decide on Morrigan, as it was a coin flip between the two and I very well could have chose her instead.

The main issue is not really do we need gay love affairs in games, but to we need love affairs in games at all. From the significant segment of gamers I chat with, the vast majority response was: “depends on the genre and essence of the game.” I noticed it to be a pleasant break from hacking and slashing in Dragon Age and wading through objectives. I never opt for the male on male option and I rarely like to end up playing an opposite sex toon, unless that is the only choice available. Nonetheless, added alternatives are sure to make the games significantly more appetizing to a much wider range of people.

There is considerable shortage of relationship opportunities in most the games, even in RPGs (Role Playing Games). There certainly is a bigger demand for this than what producers are supplying to us. Case in point, it could have easily been a much bigger part of Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. In their forerunner Fallout 2, this was in fact a neat function of that game, that was regrettably disregarded by the first person heirs. There is a remarkable addon for Fallout 3 named “Gurlz 187”, which can be located for free at Fallout 3 Nexus. Players can hook up with a companion known as Sasha Ashe (who I have used in my Cops in the Wasteland Fallout machinimas if you want to look at her). The more Sasha has feelings for your persona, the more stuff she will offer and the more advantages she will make available to you, among them having sex with you. My presumption is that developers do want to offer us relationships in our game titles, but the fact is the added computer code needed takes an extended period of time which makes it a great deal more costly to finish. Obviously, if precious time was the only challenge we would have seen way more romantic avenues for Duke in Duke Nukem Forever, in spite of the fact that we liked the 2 females snogging. “Shake it baby”.

I find the shortfall of digital love interests astonishing. With all the innovations in AI (artificial intelligence), why haven’t we observed more? The only piece of software I know of that shows any actual AI relationship fostering is a more obscure program named Kari Virtual Girlfriend. Kari has actually been around for at least 6 years and has progressed little or none, which is too bad as the concept is wonderful. I completely imagine if a large studio makes a great game, with a remarkable romantic choices for you, it would spring off the shelves (or off their Internet download web servers) and post record sales. Clearly there is a demand for love and relationship making in games. There are a multitude of people out there who either have no true love relationship in their day-to-day lives or It could be they just like to role play. Naturally in many games love is completely of no consequence. When you’re aiming straight down the scope of sniper rifle what big difference does it make? Conversely in a fantasy game it indeed adds detail to the game world.

So what do you feel on the subject of relationships in video gaming? Would you purchase a game that has a high quality relationship component and would you really want same sex alternatives? And should the government or game industry limit these to M and A/O rated titles or do we view homosexual romantic engagements in E rated games? Only precious time will tell. And whatever became of the virtual reality sex simulators we were promised years ago, like the Orgasmitron? I guess I will write about that  idea another time. As I am almost ready to conclude this article, I stumble upon a game review on a newly released title for PS3 called “Catherine”. The game’s plot centers around a male character’s commitment with his girlfriend Katherine (note spelling is with a “K”) and some hanky-panky with a gorgeous chick named Catherine (with a “C”). So I suspect we are on the correct path. We are fully aware sex sells, but I feel relationships would too. I can see it nowMicrosoft’s “Deliverance: Squeal Like A Pig Edition” or Blizzard Presents “Brokeback Mountain: No Man Left Behymen”. Have a good time. Thanks for reading.

Buccaneer Dan was an famous Atari Pirate from back in the day. He is now an pro in the area of web services. He also writes about game software and is a pro game tester. Find him at GamePirates.net or GamePirates.us

]]> http://gamepirates.net/?feed=rss2&p=21800 0 http://gamepirates.net/?p=21800 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Gamepiratesnet/~3/sJEZQLTJLXA/ http://gamepirates.net/?p=21637#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:43:34 +0000 buccaneerdan http://gamepirates.net/?p=21637 Duke Nukem Forever. It has been ages since I wrote a game review. This title was so horrific I thought I needed to warn potential video game players about this game.

We will begin with a some background information on Duke Nukem. Long ago in 1994 the very first Duke Nukem 1st person game was launched. Duke had been born out of 2 preceding Duke Nukem lame platform style games. The completely new game was truly fresh. Duke Nukem 3D was the title of this truly awesome game by 3D Realms, Inc. Now I don’t know if after their initial business success if the game makers just lay around and took hits of the most popular designer drug of the period, but it took these code monkeys 14 years to crap out a sequel to Duke 3D.

Now we shall have a look at Duke Nukem Forever. I will caution that one should wear latex gloves before handling this stinking stool. Ok, I don’t care about the fact the yarn is the same as ’3D. Come on guys it is merely a shooter! We have been assaulted by pigs from space who want to rob us of our young women. You (being Duke) must protect them. Sounds fantastic so far, yawn. So you start out in the game exactly where Duke 3D finished up 14 years ago. It careens down hill from here.

You can only pack 2 weapons, all of which suck ass with the enjoyable exception, of the shotgun. This instrument was the only thing that left me with any gratification in this steamer. The levels are boring and the puzzles are stale and serve only to delay any amusing game play. Many elements of the game start out as engaging, but quickly lose their enchantment as they grind on and on in repetition. Sure they are some entertaining jokes and one-liners, but those times are either far too few or once again, excessively repetitive.

The game does offer sexy nude dancers and an awesome lesbian kiss, which is an aspect of the complete Duke Nukem extreme testosterone fueled persona. Regrettably the attitude of ‘Forever is really geared at premature teenage boys, but with a Mature +17 indication on the game, countless moms & dads will be forbidding this before it gets to their Xbox 360.

So here are a number of of the functions that should have been added in ‘Forever. Co-op Mode. Want to destroy pigs from the cosmos with your pals? Sorry, not included. How about Aim Down Sights? Nope. You are required aim like a retarded monkey. And where is the dynamic environment? Almost all the game is rendered from the start. There is only a very limited amount of items that have any serious use in the story. And only Internet multi-player setting is present. Why no local multi-player mode? Yes I am sorry ‘Forever is forever stuck in the ’90s.

The final point I will consider is cost. This is a $60(US)game, Here is the one month diagram of sales.

Americas Japan EMEAA Worldwide Running Total
1 184,154 N/A 72,974 257,128 257,128
2 38,550 N/A 28,217 66,767 323,895
3 10,545 N/A 13,832 24,377 348,272
4 N/A N/A 7,064 7,064 355,336

This title will soon be in the dumpster bins. I can hear the GameStop flushing them down the toilet as we speak. “I came here to chew gum and kick this moronic game’s ass, and I’m all out of gum”. Please fans save your hard earned greenbacks and buy something good like Call of Duty: Black Ops and stay away Dook Poopem Forever!

Buccaneer Dan was an infamous Atari Pirate from back in dial up days. He is now an guru in the field of web hosting and frequently sets up dedicated servers, builds WordPress based websites and IPB Forums. He also reviews games and is a professional beta tester. Find him at http://gamepirates.net or http://gamepirates.us

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