Warhammer 40k 8th Edition Initial Thoughts.

8th edition is an interesting turn of events from what 7th edition brought. 7th was the cheese fest of Tau shooting from across the map, Eldar sitting back till they can come in and rip away every important unit possible with ridiculous weapons, Space Marines dropping in like Eldar, but having more of a ground presence and Necrons getting back up after dying twelve times. 8th takes that and flips it sideways. Now melee and horde armies with lots of shooting or bodies to soak up the shooting while ground is covered doesn’t lose the player the game in the first two turns. With that description it sounds like 40k. Well, it is. It’s a simpler 40k game that requires revluation of one's tactics and armies.

 The skills are all tuned away from the amazing charts that I had come to love so much. They’ve instead been simplified. Some use the phrase dumbed down, but that’s not the case. It’s basically the same with simpler language and less chart searching. Hitting is just reversed. Instead of seeing 4 Ballistic/Weapons Skill = 3+ D6 dice roll it’s just 3+. The Ballistic/Weapons Skill chart wasn’t the hardest to memorize, but the 4=3 and 3=4 is pointless in comparison to this new system. Weapon skills were more like the damage chart that i’ll get into in a moment, but now it’s just a base roll. This makes close combat much easier, but less thoughtful. The WS 3 Guardsman vs the WS 8 Daemon Prince should end in the Daemon Prince parrying the Guardsman so badly that the Guardsman executes himself. I will say that ten Guardsmen attacking one Prince and hitting easier makes more sense since they’re all attacking at once. Those bayonets may not do much, but they are making contact like a swarm of bees stinging metal. The first eighty may not do anything, but the eighty first might just get through the weakened spot. Not a bad change here.

 The damage chart got a slight overall. I say slight since like the the skill stats it’s not completely different, but it’s not the same either. Having the same Strength and Toughness does the same. Those wound on rolls of 4+. If it’s less the wounds occur on a 3+. If the power is double the toughness then it wounds on a 2+. The same can be send for the opposite. If the toughness is higher than the strength it wounds on a 5+. If it’s double it wounds on a 6. It’s much simpler, but it does bring the game back down to being more open. Let me explain using my Guard. Heavy bolters were only good against enemies with a toughness below 5 or a save of 4+. They got overlooked for the superior autocannon that had one less shot, but two more strength. It wounded more and doubled as an anti light vehicle gun. Now autocannons are far more useful against bigger creatures and light vehicles while heavy bolters are where they should be against the more basic units with they’re extra attack and twelve inch less range. All weapons now have more defined roles. This is something Warhammer 40k needed since some weapons at times got no use. Now everything is viable within their given roles. More creative lists incoming.

 Armor piercing and the cover system has changed for the better. Instead of a set stat of 2-6 it’s now a modifier to the opponent's save. These range from -1 to -4. For those of you who haven’t seen any leaks I’ll give a general overview to AP real quick. AP 1=-4, 2=-3, 3=-2 and 4=-1. Anything lower loses its AP value. It’s slightly downgraded from how it was. This gives weaker non 3+ armor saved armys a slightly better chance to live. An AP 4 Heavy Bolter killed anything that had a fifty fifty shot of living. Now it only lessens their odds slightly. Given how many Space Marines there are compared to a horde armies basic units, it ends up balancing out better. It also pushes the combat into being more cover reliant for the weaker units and it shows just how powerful other units are. Space Marines are all powerful. Firing two hundred shots at them from behind cover gives the bigger army a huge edge. This forces Space Marines to rely on their siege breaking tactics in a smarter fashion while the rest of the army is pinned down.

 This paragraph is an overview of other changes. Movement values now vary from unit to unit. Good. It makes more sense to have certain units move slower than others. Units no longer have so many special rules. Any effects that they have are listed right under the name. Point costs are still about the same as seventh edition. There’s also a new way to create armies. It’s through the use of power levels. It’s far simpler and faster, Some argue it's unbalanced, but honestly considering higher cost weapons have a specific use now, much like their less expensive counterparts, it just comes down to what the players needs are. Heavy Bolters can be more useful than plasma cannons. It all depends on what race is across the table.

 When the time comes i’ll take this edition for a test run. I just wanted to get my initial thoughts down so I can come back and compare thoughts with experience,

Do you like some of the changes?

What's the biggest change to you?

What do you hate?

Let me know! I’d love to hear!

As always, thank you for reading and may the Emperor guide your dice!

Fromsoft did difficulty right, with Dark Souls.

Role playing games are the grind-fest of the gaming world. The player sits back and grinds their way until the mobs are now easily disposed of. Then they move onto the next area full of confidence, only to get trounced by whatever high level thing that is. The cycle continues until they become a demigod and then they start the process all over again. This is the idea of how an RPG should be through a leveling system. The only way to win is to level up. Then came the action RPG’s. Now developers have to balance the fun action oriented combat with the leveling up mechanic. This can be challenging since there are so many different kinds of action formats and they need to be blended into the leveling format. Dark Souls is one such game that managed to find that right balance. Even with the outcry of “artificial difficulty” it still has a superior system to the likes of Skyrim, the rest of the Souls series (Including Bloodborne) and the Witcher series.

 Dark Souls leveling system is akin to a classic leveling system with an alteration. Instead of experience points the player gains souls that they can use to level up their characters stats, thereby increasing their overall level. The leveling system is open. Whatever stat the player feels is in need of a level up is open.  Souls are also used as a form of currency and some of them can create some powerful weapons. Classical RPG’s used gold along with experience points to improve characters. Dark Souls variation is more challenging since there’s a scarcity of souls early on. The player will have to decide what is most important to them as they progress.

 Dark Souls isn’t forcibly hard when it comes to leveling choices. Like any RPG it comes down to how the player manages their character. Personally, my first builds through Dark Souls were pitiful. Thankfully, the game is rewarding if the player sticks around. Any horrible build can be fixed with just a little creativity and patients. There are also ways to grind levels quickly and grind items that could offset leveling mistakes.

 The gameplay aspect of Dark Souls is what's called artificially difficult. Players complain that it’s too forcibly hard with a steep learning curve and that it’s brimming with trial and error difficulty. These are mostly all true for the previous game and the games that came after. The only one I have to roll my eyes at is the trial and error comment. All games are trial and error. The player messes up and dies. Thankfully, the player doesn’t get locked out from playing and can try again. For the rest of the comments i’ll look towards Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. They all have two major things in common, spamming enemies with infinite stamina and tracking that allows the A.I. to move like it’s on a record. These are what should be known as artificial difficulty. The A.I. can attack as many times as it pleases and only need to pause for a brief moment and if the player tries to get behind them for a flurry of attacks It’ll just follow all the way.

 Dark Souls 2’s basic enemies spin like a top. Go on youtube and look up Dark Souls 2 tracking, you’ll find a video of just how bad it can be. I’ll leave one of a fire lizard spinning like a top. There’s also spamming enemies are all over the place in any of those games. Whats even more interesting is the decisive end to the players flurry’s. While attacking a spamming enemy it will just decide the player is done and then start attacking back. The player will get stunlocked and die. Dark Souls has some of everything I’ve said, but it was in it’s less cheesy stages.

 Some will argue this adds challenge to the games. They add artificial challenge to the game. A real challenge would be to make enemy that isn’t beaten within easy means like stunlocking it to death or constantly backstabbing. This will add real challenge and force the player to figure out the enemies weaknesses. Some call this trial and error gameplay and that’s kind of the point. It’s setting the player up to pay attention to what their fighting and to learn to counter it quickly. This is so important to learn to defeat bosses without dying. There’s multiple ways to beat anything in the game with any build they just have to be found.

 This brings me to explaining how Dark Souls itself had things done differently. There was far less spamming enemies and tracking throughout the game. Some enemies were blatantly easy and others were frustratingly hard, but they’re never so hard that it’s impossible to win. They’re challenging enough to make the player need to pay more attention. One of my most challenging bosses to fight was the four kings. They were so infuriatingly unfair, or so I thought. They have a glaring weakness that the game allows the player to exploit, but it has to be found. I went on to beat them with several builds ranging from glass cannon damage dealers to tanks. I use myself as an example because I was one of those people that hated the game at first, but the more I went on the more I found out how to kill everything with whatever build I was using.

 There are some unfair things I have to mention. There’s a couple of spamming enemies, one of which is before a giant plague releasing bag of bones, that will attack the player to no end until their stamina has hit zero and they die. Everyone hates these enemies and for good reason. They’re unfair. The previous variants were challenging, but fair. The player had to work hard on killing them. These things feel like they belong in the second installment. There’s also a few cheesy, but optional bosses that are very unfair to specific players. Luckily, these aren’t main bosses. They can be bypassed. There are some unfair main bosses that everyone agrees were poorly designed, but luckily they’re beatable. Unless everyone is like me and smashes their controllers every single time it’s almost beat, but it knocks you off and makes you fall to your death.

 This was particularly vague since I don’t want anything to be spoiled. The game is glorious and allows for the player to learn and grow much like any other RPG. Does it have it’s moments where it’s unfair? Yes, but these aren’t as frequent as later games and luckily Dark Souls allows for allies to help both from the A.I. and other players. If there is something that is giving anyone trouble then grab a sign. Just beware of the red/black phantoms. I say red/black since they look red, but are referred to as black. Anyway, please consider picking the game up again and playing. It is one of the few action RPG’s that truly hit the nail nearly perfectly when it comes to difficulty. All play styles are welcome and it can be forgiving if the player just has enough patients.

 I feel as though I should get into the other games I mentioned to compare. These will be brief comparisons. Skyrim’s leveling system is the worst of the Elder Scrolls series and it pales in comparison to Dark Souls. I’ve talked about it before so i’ll just say it allows for too much freedom without much of a penalty and it’s so restrictive in that if the player does create a fair build it’ll be held back for not having the sufficient points. No points means no bonuses to that high skill level.

 Skyrims difficulty is blatantly artificial. The enemies attack goes up and the players attack goes down. RPG’s are far more fun when the player is on even terms with the enemy. The best way to play through Skyrim on legendary is to grind until every single important skill is in the high legendary’s, exploit the horrible A.I. or grab an ally and let them tank. Not as fun as being the one in the action of an evenly matched battle.

 The Witcher series follows how Dark Souls makes things more difficult. It makes the enemies stronger, but it doesn’t touch the player. I love the Witcher for this. The only thing I dislike is the streamlined RPG format. It’s the player levels up, gets a point and, it’s basically Skyrim, but with random stat improves. It’s a little better, but it’s not a classic RPG in the sense that Dark Souls is.

 Thank you very much for reading! I now want to play through Dark Souls again!

 Writer's Note: My harshness towards Skyrim, Witcher and the rest of the Souls series shouldn’t be taken as these games are terrible. They’re all good in their own right. This was just a comparison on what I prefer in an RPG.

 Link to the tracking video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRiHNNj_G64

 A bonus one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOTjz9nESsM

My hang up with niche versus mainstream gaming.

I figured It’d be a good idea to bring this up now since I’ve been going all in on this topic. So, what’s my problem with the niche and mainstream markets? It comes down to the type of gamer I am and the direction the market is shifting toward. There’s a reason people are running around screaming that the markets going to crash. It’s because, like me, their favorite series are gearing toward the mainstream. The mainstream being the largest pool of people who will pick up whatever video game. Being a niche title puts the game into a smaller pool of people. That smaller pool sees the newest version of the game as casual and geared toward people who don’t want to put in the work or learning the game, The newer players love the simplification of the newer titles. They can grasp it far easier than before. As much as I and many others rave, I feel like we all fall into this casual category in some form.

 First I’ll look at how I feel about a developer's out look toward this. It makes sense that they would want to gear their games toward more people. That net’s them a bigger budget. In a previous post I said that I don’t mind devs trying to make more money. That is the entire point of everything. You have to have the funds to do what you love. Someday I’ll want to make money off of my writing. Someday I’ll need to like they do. It can be frustrating at times and I have the right to throw a fit over Skyrim’s faults, Dawn of War III’s huge shift and the changes to WoW over the years. I just always come back to not blaming them. Money makes the world go round and without it I would never have had Pre-Wrath WoW, Oblivion and Dawn of War 1-2 and all those expansion packs.

 We all have those publishers who we know for a fact aren’t helping the developers and are in fact pushing them into this. That’s not always the case, but for the set few we all know it is. They are the ones often blamed for the lacking freedoms that their devs have over game design. They’re job is also to make money, but they don’t get the same treatment as devs do. This is rightly so. A publishers only reason for existing is to fund the game and make the money back, but at times they will become overbearing in their control. This forces the devs to make further changes that they do not want to make. Simplification isn’t a horrible thing if you can compromise it. With extreme control over the title can suppress that kind of thinking just to change it for money.

 Sometimes it is a good idea to simplify, but if they go too far they gain a new fanbase that isn’t as hardcore. If the sequel is poor the new fan base will  push it aside for the next big thing. Hardcores will stick to something even if they dislike the change. Deep down they know that if the dev is trustworthy the next title will be improved upon.

 This is the reason why devs and publishers should not go to an extreme and instead they should stay somewhere in the middle or even slightly to the side of the hardcores. They’ll keep winning and not lose it all in one big pool. Luckily for us gamers, there will always be another company to come along and capitalize on the failures of the previous one. Until they too see the dollar signs twinkling in every gamer's eyes.

 So, what does this whole thing boil down to? It comes down to the fact that I, like many others, am hardcore and casual. For instance, the Civilization series is one of my casual pleasures. I could not figure out the fourth one for the life of me. The fifth one I picked up  on how to play instantly. Did Firaxis go too far with the simplification? Perhaps. I would need to talk to a hardcore player and get their insight. Given that Firaxis seems to be doing well, I’d say they didn’t go too far. I’d love to hear from people on if my hunch is correct. Hopefully, it’s an example of how to find common ground so the universes and companies we love can stick around just slightly longer.

 The final thing this all stems from is nobody wants their favorite title to die. If it does then there’s no guarantee that the same magic will be captured with a newer company. Yeah, I just said we’re all lucky that there will always be a new game around the corner if this one fails and yeah, It’ll be a similar game, but a Bethesda game with silly glitches is a Bethesda game much like a Fromsoft game with exceptional lore is a Fromsoft game. It’s those little charms that we all don’t want disappearing anytime soon. This is why I am so hung up on niche vs mainstream markets.

Thank you so very much for reading!

 Writer's Note: One other example I could have used for my casual pleasures that I have enjoyed is Xcom: Enemy Unknown, but I haven’t played the older titles, so I wouldn’t know. I do love the unfair feel of that game and I really need my punishment fix that I know exists in the second one.

There is no gaming crash coming, but if it is then let it happen.

“The gaming crash is coming!” It isn’t coming! We live in a time where a gaming crash cannot and will not happen. People constantly compare right now to 1983. We’re not in 1983. We’re in 2017, unless this blog post is old to you. In which case, it’s old. Check the date it was published.

I’m going to go over the main reason why a crash of that magnitude will not happen again. We exist in the time of the internet. The internet allows for so many points of view to be shared amongst each other. The original crash was caused by consumer confidence being limited thanks to the huge influx of horrendous video game titles. There was no way of knowing which was good outside of video games journalism. Like any form of mainstream journalism it has been tainted and is now untrustworthy.

We may end up having smaller dips. Dips happen. They have to happen. Think of a flower. It dies and then it is reborn differently thanks to the minerals that it’s remains created for the next one to grow. Economics is the same exact thing, unless there’s meddling. Then nothing happens. Don’t meddle. The crash in 1983 was akin to nearly everything dying and then it boomed into what it is today. Which needs to die, but it won’t.

I’m sure you’re pondering how the internet prevents such a horrid crash. Simple, it’s the simplest way to create exposure. How many bloggers, Youtubers and indie journalists exist? I’m talking solely when it comes to video games. Thousands? Tens of thousands? Anyone can do it. All it requires is knowledge of the game and an opinion backed up with evidence. These people expose you, the reader, into their world and you’re able to see a new perspective.

If a big name website gives Dawn of War 3 a 9/10, you have the ability to go to Youtube and sift through reviews outside of the big media's reach. That way you’ll see why the game deserves a 6, no a 5, maybe a 2? See my point? If a game is that terrible you’ll see it reflected in many reviews and they’ll not only say the evidence, but show it. This was impossible in the 80s. The closest thing to a collapse that could happen in this time is a major company dying out because they made one too many poor games. Remember the minerals though. When something big dies you’ll start to see a lot of the new little things sprout up.

Last thing I’m sure you’re pondering is why should we as gamers let a full on crash happen? It’s good once in awhile to just reset everything and go from there. I personally like the idea of a complete restart over just individually weeding out the worst. It gets rid of all the giants who are eating up all the minerals and allows for all the smaller things to grow without being pushed around. Luckily for you and me that doesn’t need to happen. I’d like it too, but as we’ve seen with the rise of the “PC Master Race”, comes the rise of indie titles not beholden to just consoles. Video games are going to get better. There’s far too much freedom, competition and exposure for it not to. Just be weary of those that wish to take such things away. That’s when the problems of the 80s will start to come back. Independent exposure will be shoved aside for more favorable exposure.

Thank you very much for reading and please be vigilant about your fandom. Don’t let a company gain your loyalty so easily. Let them prove you wrong. You’ll be much happier for it now and in the long run.

Why are classic role playing games falling out of the niche and into the mainstream?

I had to include “Mainstream” because there are so many new independent RPG’s being released everyday. It’s astounding when you think about the people who claim gaming is dying, but all these new games are popping up that just rejuvenate it. The thing is these aren’t mainstream titles. These are extremely niche titles that aren’t known nearly as well in the household as say Skyrim and World of Warcraft. These are two of the giants that come to my mind since they have now moved into the mainstream. In WoW’s case, it’s been mainstream since it’s second expansion while Skyrim is far more recent, but they all went mainstream for the same reasons. They’re no longer RPG’s.

WoW is a good place to start. So, what happened to WoW? Simple. It dumbed itself down. It became far more focussed on getting the player through the grind faster than keeping the player there. An RPG’s whole point of existing is to grind and grind until the player become a Demi God. They have to build themselves up and earn their equipment on the way. They also have to take their time to customize their character into its particular role that suits their play style the best.

WoW no longer does this. It now streamlines a certain amount of play styles and allows the players to pick between them. It gets rid of the freedom of complete choice for limited choice. It was possible to customize the type of class they were and not just get a little bit of everything. For instance, what if as a Hunter there was a particular stat that I had no use for and I could bypass it for something else that’s far more useful, such as say boosting my traps. Now, I have to pick one of three set versions which gives me 1/3rd of what I want. This isn’t what an RPG is. This is far more streamlined in order to remove the thinking part of the game along with the freedom of choice and the grind needed to get there.

Some will argue that the old style of the game ended up being streamlined in the end since everyone used the same builds that were optimized to death. The thing is that wasn’t for the whole game's population. If you were a player vs player or a hardcore raider type you’d want to optimize your build for your set role to maximize your abilities. No one forced anyone to do this. It just became a forgone conclusion that it had to be done. I never optimized my characters. I picked what I wanted and I did as I pleased. If someone had a problem with it I played with people who were in it to have fun. RPG’s are always going to be like that. There’s always going to be that optimized choice that outdoes all the rest. That’s a flaw that comes with freedom of choice. It’s a worthy flaw since the games so open that you’ll end up running into more people like you than those who want to just optimize from the get go.

Interestingly enough, Blizzard could have gone the same rout as Rift and allowed the game to optimize itself for the player and then allow everyone else to do it themselves if they pleased. This would have been a good compromise that allowed everyone to be happy without inhibiting creativity and freedom of choice. Sadly, compromises die when the mainstream comes a knocking.

The last thing WoW did was get rid of the grind. It used to be that the player would slowly improve their character and themselves by working their way up in money, skills, stats and player skill. With the lack of choice when it comes to class stats they can’t improve themselves the way they’d want to anymore. Money is now handed to the them. Anytime I’ve played a free account character I’ve hit max money easily. That's with a capped profession level and no access to the auction house. Skills have been gone for a long time. There was a time where you had to improve your ability with different weapons. The lower it was the harder it was to hit. Even armor and weapons are easy to come by. It used to be that the player had to save and buy some, luckily find it after fighting something or make it themselves. All three are gone because quests simply provide them with equipment. It’s an okay idea to get people off and running, but as the game goes on the rewards get ridiculous. It’s possible to get a blue item for delivering a message? Come on! It was far more enjoyable when the first time a helmet or shoulder armor was found. Some of us literally jumped for joy. The other thing that suffers is the player's skill. If they can just roll through every enemy without a second thought no one's ever going to improve their player style. It’s not about all that anyone. It’s all a fast forward button.

Moving on to Skyrim which went into the complete opposite direction to WoW. An example of where it used to stand is the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Oblivion is a classic RPG. Some will argue Morrowind is superior, but I have to use Oblivion since I haven’t played Morrowind. So do forgive me Morrowind fans, I’m not forsaking you. In Oblivion, there are stats such as strength, intelligence, endurance and so on that could be increased with each level. The way leveling worked was similar to Skyrim. The player would  have specific talents that would improve just by using them. Once they improved enough times it was possible to level up. With Skyrim, it turned into being able to increase health, magicka, and stamina. With stamina, the player also gained a weight carry bonus. A point that was just gained could then be used on  any talent that they’re currently leveling up to get a bonus.

It sounds so much easier doesn’t it? The randomness of the stats bonus is now gone in favor of something much simpler. This allows for more freedom with the creation of a character and allows for unlimited possibilites. Unlimited possibilities that end up doing the game in.

I just spent a lot of time on how closed off WoW became with it’s freedom, so this is going to feel odd at first, but Skyrim allows the player too much freedom. RPG’s have so much freedom of choice to them, but players always had to stick to their roles. They couldn’t be a mage in heavy armor without suffering some sort of penalty to other skills that would benefit their spell casting. They couldn’t be a sneak thief with heavy armor. Heavy armor is far more clunky and noisy compared to lighter and tighter leather armor. Mages and thieves need to be light on their feet to create space against their enemy. Wearing lighter armor or no armor helps that problem, but it comes at a cost of protection. This is called balancing. A person who can steal like a pro has to have the threat of angering the warrior he’s stealing from. Without the balance of the threat the player might as well just kill the guy and take his stuff. The player is a near god from the beginning without proper balancing. There is set roles with strengths and weaknesses that create a challenge throughout the game. If everyone could do everything then what's the point in playing a role?

World of Warcraft had the freedom of customizing a specific class. The class still had disadvantages compared to the rest of the classes, but there were ways to help offset it. If a hunter could wear plate armor and have extremely powerful ranged and melee weapons and a pet on top of it why wouldn’t this be the dominant class? Why wouldn’t one be a warlock or mage in heavy armor that can summon demons or atronachs? Everyone would pick those. They’re incredibly powerful. They don’t fit a specific role. For every warrior a healer is needed and for everyone of each people who can do damage is needed, but they’re in danger of dying easily without the warrior holding the line. The player also needs to learn their roles strengths and weaknesses. That's the challenge to the game.

Skyrim gives the player no reason to play again. They can be everything. Not like a jack of all trades type whose only good, not great at everything. The player is a god of all trades as long as they level themselves up. It completely defeats the purpose of roles in an RPG.

Being a god of everything is the honest reason that RPG’s are falling into the mainstream. No one seems to want to play a role anymore. They just want to do whatever they please. Allowing anyone to do anything opens up the market to new people who just want to run around and kill dragons or in WoW’s case, do dungeons. The whole build oneself up and overcome their weaknesses aspect is gone in favor of do as you please. These aren’t RPGs anymore. There is only one role to play now. That's the every-man role of do all that you please with no restrictions. For the niche it’s a let down, but for those who want to jump right in thoughtlessly, that’s perfect until it goes so far that it alienates everyone.

The Call of Duty crowd of today does not want to think. They want to jump in and play. RPG’s have never been about mindlessly doing quests and dungeons. It was about building oneself up. Whether it took the player a year or five the player still made headway. Even in Everquest, the biggest grind-fest of grind fests, this was true. I’m more attached to WoW for its lore and world, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used here. Killing ten plus enemies a day gets the player somewhere. It builds them up to a point where things start to get easy. They’ll be at that point where they’ll be getting great equipment from dungeons, they’ll hit max level at some point and even if they don’t their skills will be higher and that’s when they’ll really start rolling. Mainstream RPG’s are forgoing this for an easier early game. It’s sad since the early game just set the player up for the easy ride. Not anymore. No one wants anything to be challenging anymore.

Thank you for reading!

I’m going to go play Oblivion.

Is Dawn of War Soulstorm really so bad?

Soulstorm is definitely the black sheep within the crop of the Dawn of War games. It was the one expansion Relic had nothing to do with. They were busy working on Dawn of War 2. That left Iron Lore Entertainment to do the job. Some will say they did a horrendous job and others say they did okay. I personally think they did better than people give them credit for. Given that they’d never made a strategy game, especially one as niche as DoW, and the only game they’d made was Titan Quest, an action role playing game, and an expansion for it. I’m willing to pull back some of the blame for inexperience. So, how did they do?

I’ll start off with the gameplay. Having been playing it for the last few weeks, I have to say at times it’s both better and worse than Dark Crusade. It’s superior since it adds two more races and gives them their unique roles and playstyles in the game. I have to give them this point for doing so well with the new races. The worse comes in with the gameplay itself. The controlling of the units can be a bit off.

The Sisters of Battle are where they should be as a mix between the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines. They also have the attribute of powers given to them through their faith. The powers are there to offset the lack of a super tank and elite infantry. They do have the saint, but because they’re like the Guard and Marines, they only get one or the other. The saint was good enough for what they do. They’re a  much better armed horde army with the boost of FIRE, lots of fire to cleanse the impure, and to also break morale. It’s an interesting concept that brings the player back to the basics of the game where morale breaking is your best friend. It’s the saints best friend too.

The Dark Eldar, much like the normal Eldar are just infuriating. A different kind of infuriating. They go a lot further into the blood, guts and gore of combat while the normal Eldar are clean and quick. That’s really it. The Dark eldar are just darker slave trading Eldar with some interesting warp powers that will build up over the course of a game to make up for the fact that like the normal Eldar they’re underpowered in the early game.

I hate the Dark and normal Eldar, so that’s fine with me, but from a balance standpoint they’re pretty weak. They are movement races, so it could just be my lack of experience with them in this regard. I am a Guard player after all. Staying stationary is what we do best. We die standing.

Here’s where the chinks in the armor start to show up. The gameplay itself is lacking in comparison to Dark Crusade. There’s a weird bug where I’ll tell my guys to go in one direction and they’ll take an off route. If a base is right in front of them they’ll attempt to go around it instead of into it. It only occurs when I’m attack moving, but it has messed me up on occasion and given the enemy a superior position.

Otherwise, the combat feels lifeless. I don’t get this rush during combat that I once did. In the previous games when you entered combat it was an epic battle. Tanks firing ordnance into melee skirmishes with gunfire galore flying all around. Now it all just feels stale. I feel like this is for two reasons.

I’m used to the combat by now. It’s been a game and three expansion packs. It makes sense I’d grow tired of it, but I’m not tired of the other games. Winter Assault, to me, still has the most epic feel when it comes to combat. I think that’s because of the second reason.

The games been so streamlined by this point. You can only have X amount of this troop while the rest of your troops are barebones basic. Winter Assault allowed me to field any kind of army to combat whatever was in front of me. Orks? Break out the hellhounds. Space Marines? Chimeras with lots of Kasrkan with plasma guns. Eldar? Ogryn tended to do the job right. Chaos required a mixture of hellhounds and chimeras. There was so many ways to field an army. Now it’s two Russ’s, three Basilisks, one Kasrkan and one Ogryn squad. I do get a couple of bombers and heavy weapons teams, but it was more fun when I could field an entire elite army. Now, it’s just Guardsman.

I’ll move onto looks now. The game definitely looks prettier with it’s uptick in graphics. The expansion packs have all added to the graphical fidelity of the base game. Especially with Dark Crusade that brought in 1920 by 1080p resolution. If you’re like me and own the games outside of steam the updates are not easy to comeby without risk. If I was to take one shot at steam, It’d be that, but old games are just that, old.  

The problem with the look of Soulstorm is that it’s too clean. Look at Dark Crusade, Winter Assault and the base game's campaign. The maps were grainy and dark with a lot of history behind them. This is supposed to be a war torn system from years of battle between the orks and guard, why isn’t it shown? You see it in in the previous installments. The world of Tartarus and it’s dead Guard and demolished cities, Lorn V with Its Guard inhabitants eradicated, It’s Chaos and Orks inhabitants strewn about fighting each other with a massive destroyed base of operations just ready for the winner to claim. It looks to have a massive amount of history to it everywhere as you march through it with your army to take it back. Dark Crusade has the feel of a guard/Tau planet in that they weren’t really fighting until everyone showed up, which is fluff friendly. The Kauraven planets feel like noone was there fighting, ever. You’ll find a couple of areas if you look hard enough, but most of the areas are squeaky clean. It doesn’t feel grimdark.

There’s also an odd mesh of the tabletop terrain with the game's background. It comes off as eye popping in some areas. The destroyed buildings just don’t mix with the pretty foliage that looks like it has not been affected in any way by the war torn years of strife.

Sound and ambience I’ll summarize quickly. It’s stellar just like the rest of the series. The new tracks of the holy organs really capture what the Sisters of Battle are fighting for. Their scorching xenos filth in the name of their glorious God Emperor. I much prefer the chanting and war drums laced with flashlights/laser pointers, but that's me. The Dark Eldar’s soundtrack is just menacing, evil and extremely epic. It truly reflects who the Dark Eldar are. If you don’t know then go and look up their history. Don’t if you’re against pure sin.

Now I come to the story. The story is pretty much the first game with a cluster of extra races thrown in. Orks and Guard and are fighting each other for control of the sector. Obviously, that’s a secondary goal for the Orks, but it helps their primary goal of “fightin” and “winnin”. Then all of that changes when near every single other race attacks. Once they’re all there a massive warp storm traps them all in and their left to fend each other off. It’s not entirely like the first game, but it’s close.

It’s not a top notch story that truly exceeds either of Winter Assault or the base game's story. What it is is a typical tuesday for Warhammer 40k. Everyone killing each other off in the most brutal of fashions and only the strongest can come out on top. Who wins? You’ll have to judge that yourself. Unless you want a lore winner, that's where you find out the lore is quite fond of a certain blogger. Too bad everyone hates this game.

The last thing I'll look at is the voice acting. Honestly, this aspect of the game gets far more scrutiny than it deserves. The only voices that hit me the wrong way were Commander Boreale, who just sounds off. He sounds as if he came from an entirely different universe and can barely get into the way Space Marines talk. It’s just offputting. The other voice is Gorgutz, I am so used to his original voice being hammy and amazing in representing the Orks perfectly. Hearing him talk like he just smoked his voice away just saddens me. One other complaint with the voice acting, the characters hardly intermigle. You got a mixture of everything in Dark Crusade. Everyone had something to say to each other and here it’s just everyone talking amongst themselves. It’s not as fun when there’s no banter involved. As bad as Gorgutz and Boreale sound, I bet some banter would have helped out the situation.

Looking back I didn’t have the hate that some others have towards it. I treated it as a lesser expansion than the rest, but it was still good and that hasn’t changed. Being older and more experienced with games and being far more observant, I have to say I found a lot more problems than I used to see. To me, the weakest part of the game is the feel to it. I don’t feel these worlds are as wartorn as was presented. They just seem like a little bit of war happened. Both the Orks and Guard had been stalemating for years and now everything else has shown up and are wiping each other out. It just needed to be shown more.. Everything else wrong with it can be overlooked slightly since it was Iron Lore’s first and only crack. I feel like if given another shot they’d have hit the mark. The gameplay had very little problems and the banter they’d have picked up on if given more time in the world. The voice acting wasn't perfect, but the marks that had to be hit with the new races were spot on.

Give it a shot if you haven’t. It’s still worth a playthrough or two.

Thank you very much for reading!

May the Emperor guide your blade.

Why is it okay to kill off a niche genre for something more mainstream?

Two things before I go into details. One, this is technically a niche of a niche genre. I’ll expand on it in a moment. The other thing is the answer is money. If you were looking for a bigger more complex answer it doesn’t exist. Money is the driving force for anything small turning into something big. I wanted to say this here because this is an opinion piece on my feelings toward Dawn of War 3 versus its predecessors. Now, that isn’t a bad reason. I’m completely understanding toward a company saying they want to grow the title and they see this certain way as the best way to do it. That is where I disagree with them and use my money elsewhere as a show of protest.

Where my opinion comes in is regarding the split fanbase that now exists. I simply want to know why it’s okay for you all to get a game that you wanted, even though there are other new titles that fit the same style, while me and the rest of the DOW fans who adored the first and second game must give up and play Dawn of StarCraft 3: Mindless Blob. StarCraft 2 exists. You can play StarCraft 2 anytime that you please and there may even be a third one. I can’t even enjoy Warcraft 4, because World of Warcraft took that possibility and threw it out the window. That leaves my fallback and honestly my first choice since I prefer DoW’s style and story to the individual unit style of StarCraft. The story of StarCraft didn’t pull me in like the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennia did. Sadly, the unique play style of DoW is likely gone. Grim Darkness being gone is yet to be determined.

In StarCraft, you can move your guys into individual squads and make them into mindless blobs. Essentially, you can play with the same style as DoW 3, but it doesn’t have the same feel to DoW 2 and 1. I liked the morale system and the refill the squad on the fly mechanic of the first game. I liked the strategic component to certain weapons and vehicles. The havoc they could bring or the absolute failure that could lose you the game. Now that option is gone since DoW 3 has moved in the direction of Squad based StarCraft.

StarCraft exists and allows for a flexible play style. So, why should DoW fans who liked both games styles lose them just to indulge in a style that already exists and has been perfected? Because you like the story? The great thing about DoW is that you can enjoy the story and bypass the multiplayer. Now, it’s all geared toward the multiplayer. In the end, you lose as much as we do. Only people who win are StarCraft style fans who already have their own game.

Thanks for reading.

For the Emperor!

Why I stopped watching Dragon Ball Super after fifteen episodes

If I was told that there was going be another Dragon Ball based series after GT ended I’d have yelled no in a very over the top trope like tone. Not because I doubted that it was going to happen, but because I didn’t want it to happen. Hear me out all fans who adore Super for some reason. GT with all its faults was good. Sometimes exceptionally good with its ability to try new things and mix in references from the previous sagas, but at other times it was poor. Some of the new things that were tried just didn’t fit in well. Personally, the show wasn’t ever bad at any point. I enjoyed everything and got a kick out of the stupid moments. I’m not going to go into specifics, because there might be someone who’s never watched it and I don’t want to taint their opinion one way or another. I’ll just say it’s a love letter to Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z from people who did they’re best. Mixing the two styles as the creator may have been easy, but to other people it’d be tough and GT hit the mark sometimes. I would have loved to see what it could have been if Akira Toriyama had helped. At least, I thought I did.

Fast forward to Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. I’m going to avoid spoilers again. So, I’ll just say that I loved what it brought to the table. It mixed the two series perfectly. You got the silliness of Dragon Ball with the serious tone of Z. To me, this reflects the novels the best. The novels never seemed to change its tone much like the two shows did. Bear in mind I’m from the U.S. and I am going by the English dubs.

The only thing I hated was the use of CGI. I adore hand drawn animation. It looks better to me. When I see CGI alongside hand drawn animation it takes me out of the moment. It’s like seeing a movie with poor CGI. You just raise an eyebrow at the eyesore or start laughing hysterically. That one complaint aside Battle of Gods is what I wanted if DBZ was to ever come back. It’s an after story that shows what the characters are up to and it brings some incredible action as DBZ always has. And then the news came.

I’m going to glance over the Frieza movie. I didn’t watch it and honestly, I don’t want to. It strikes me like the old DBZ movies. Those one-offs like Lord Slug or Android 13. They pop up and give some amazing action with a rocking soundtrack, but it adds nothing to the story for me. I’ve seen Goku beat Frieza twice and his brother, Cooler twice. I really don’t want to see this family again. Trunks can have them in his alternate time. Where he can stay forever and never return... I hate Super so much.

Now we come to the reason why I stopped watching. I’m not going to spoil much outside of the two major complaints that brought me to just click X on my browser and never look back. The first reason is the retelling of Battle of Gods. Yes, they retold it. It was awful. It took everything great about the movie and dumped it into the ocean. They just happened to be on a cruise that day. I completely understand the idea of showing it in the show since the show must start somewhere, but why not after the movie? The movie was a 9/10 to me and many others. Why did it have to be remade? To show off the horrid animation that looked horrible by 90’s standards? I guess so. It had a few extra funny moments with Vegeta, but I’d gladly trade those in for the movie. By the way, the movie had a scene where Vegeta did something you’d never think he’d do. For those who don’t seem to like his character development, I’ll just say that scene in the movie was fantastic. It made me start to absolutely adore Vegeta. The pain in the rear end redeemed himself and is still the coolest character of the bunch. I love Battle of Gods.

This was the first reason I wanted to stop watching and it ended up being the final one since it continued to resurface over and over again. The retelling and poor animation got my blood boiling, but the fact that it was now a staple made me quit. The characterization of Goku. Think about Goku. Think about all the time we’ve spent watching him interact with the world around him. Tell me, when was he ever this stupid?

In Dragon Ball, he was an ignorant kid from the mountains (and outer space) who learned as he went along. In Dragon Ball Z, he was an ignorant adult, but he still knew everything he’d learned from Dragon Ball. It showed since he could pick up on things faster thanks to his younger exposure. When he did something silly like ditch something for training it’s because he was bored not because he misunderstood the situation. It’s far more entertaining when he’s aware he’s wrong and doesn’t care than just being an idiot.

In Super, he comes off as slowing back down to an adolescent. If he doesn’t know something and it takes him forever to figure it out. Before Super, the silly moment happened, he’d get chewed out by whomever and he’d have a good laugh about it while explaining “But I don’t like that stuff.” In Super, it never stops. It’s a running joke of “Oh Hi, I’m acting like when I was a kid. Isn’t it funny how absolutely stupid I am acting?” He never stops and when he is being serious it's so much harder to take him seriously. Which means I can’t take the show seriously. I don’t want to watch a bumbling idiot save the world through ignorance and luck. If I did I’d watch One Piece. I want to watch Goku save the world and do it alongside his friends. I want him to be silly and somewhat ignorant, but know what he’s doing. That’s what makes Goku, Goku. That’s his personality. At least that used to be his personality, not anymore,

There is one saving grace from the handful of episodes I watched. Hercule in episode one has some amazing character development. So much happiness killed in the span of the same episode, but this was genuine happiness that matched what I felt with Vegeta. Good on you Mr. Satan! You’ve really grown since the Cell Saga. I just wish it had happened in Battle of Gods.

 Thanks for reading!

Sports stuff.

It's hard to be happy when the country thinks the team you cheer for is a bunch of cheaters. I started watching in 2010. A good time after SpyGate, but its always thrown in my face.The championships meant nothing to me, because I did not experience them. Now its deflated balls. :( I'm almost done with the NFL.

Congrats to Macolm Butler. Cry it up dude. In my eyes you're on top of the world right now and you're only a rookie.

Seventh Son (Last Apprentice Series-ish)

Is um......... Is a story about an old man looking for someone to take up his work too hard for our dumbass world to grasp? I mean you literally took the entire story and ground it up into something so goddamn simple.

"Duh evil comes. Chosen thing vs evil. Evil loses. Sequel fart." That's the movie.

This is going to be just as bad as Dragonball Evolution. I can bet that there wasn't an ounce of care put in. Directors seemingly have no want to make a good movie anymore. It's all about the lowest common denominator. You know the idiots.

Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4zX--5Ils8 The fact that there's so many thumbs up is an absolute travesty.

I just want to thank Peter Jackson for putting in so much care for the Hobbit. I will always love the book more, but the movies were very very good.

This is a response to an article. "Kind of."

Preorder Call of Destinyfall: Assassins Dogs Effects several months early from Gamestop and receive a lovely skin or content ripped from the game that will be available later as paid DLC (Downloadable Content) while the company gets a early look at its profits that allow them to half ass the rest of the way leading to more DLC! DLC a fraction of the game at only half the cost (Companies vary depending on area or ownership. F you EA). 

In all honesty I don't care about pre-ordering as it is your choice as the consumer, but please if a company has burned you a few times wait and see what the games are like. For the love of Gaben (Nickname for Gabe Newell Managing Director of Valve) do not read IGN or Gameinformer. Find a review from someone outside of the industry that has gained your trust, or has similar opinions as yourself. Gaming industry is mostly ass kissing now a days. Be prepared for games rating at a 7.5 or higher from outlets within the industry for games like Assassins Creed Unity, Titanfall, Destiny, Watch Dogs and Gaben knows what else.

Praise be to Gaben! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoGxA48HQ1g

Article: https://games.yahoo.com/news/2015-stop-preordering-video-games-once-183056936.html

Why Goku vs Superman would end in a technical tie

Screwattack is about as knowledgeable on the characters they pit against each other as I am about Attack on Titan. I have not watched AOT. The ending victor was Superman through "statistics". First off calculating a win through purely numbers will always fail. If you've ever watched a fight or sporting event or either characters shows you'll know that human or in this case alien element comes into play. Goku and Kent were both raised on earth therefore have that element.

I will admit that Superman at his most powerful is longer lasting than Goku, but he's not unbeatable. So why do I disagree with the outcome if I agree Superman would outlast Goku? Goku has a trump card he should have pulled and would have pulled if the situation arose. That's the Kaio-ken attack. "What's that" asked anyone who hasn't watched Dragonball. It's an attack that can increase ones power by X. X can be any number. Goku before super sayain could go to x20 with ease. Goku being at super sayain 4 would easily bump that up given the effects of each ascension previously.

Now i'm extremely lazy and didn't want to crunch the numbers. The thing is I don't need to. Goku could easily use the attack and increase his power level to well above Superman’s thereby letting Goku win.... for a moment. Kaio-ken does damage to its host and given the level Goku would have to use to beat Superman he'd die.

Goku like Superman would sacrifice his life in order to defeat a foe. So whether either one wins and loses the world will be saved. It's a joke that people want to pick a winner through numbers thereby hurting the characters and undermining their full potential in mortal danger.

I know i'm a hypocrite, but I only did this to show that they'd tie in the end. Personally I want them to join forces and beat the ultimate evil. I love both of these characters and seeing them fight each other depresses me so. If Goku or Superman turned evil you know damn well the other side would win out for the good of Earth and the universe.

 Thanks for reading.

Late edit: I want Goku and Superman vs Broly. Having these two take on the strongest being in the universe would be extremely epic! Broly's power never stops growing making his power level infinite. LET THE BATTLE FOR THE UNIVERSE OR DESTRUCTION BEGIN!

What Praising the Sun means to me

Whenever your scared, sad or alone always remember to hold your head high and praise the sun. The sun isn't just its own entity. The sun is a catalyst for jolly cooperation. There's always someone praising it with you. Even when the world seems to be at it's darkest you are never truly alone.

Praise the Sun.

UNICEF Hijacking Event: My opinion as a gamer and a human being

UNICEF recently held an event to showcase a horrific video game. The problem with me is it wasn’t a video game. It was a story of what’s happening in another country. If you want the full video and information I have it linked below. I just need to stress my one problem with this idea. It was a hoax.

UNICEF actually treated the event as a full blown video game unveiling. You cannot do this. Lying does not make your agenda look any better. In fact it makes the event look worse. You are willing to deceive people just to portray a message. Yes the message is just and humane to you, but you’re damaging your opinion.

I would much rather they handle it as honestly as possible. I know people will tell me that “no one would have watched the event if it had been treated as an honest event.”

My question to you is how do you know? Pull out your time machine and show me evidence of this. You can’t can you? You can only open your mouth to spout your agenda in the hopes that the humane emotional attachment created will let you real right. You’re still wrong.

If you want to send a message in an honest manner while also winning over gamers, then make the game. Create the story. There are a ton of indie survival video games out there that do well without being too costly. You can create the attachment and hit the player with the message that everything in the game is based on real events. This war of mine is a video game depicting the hardships of being stuck as a civilian during war time. You need to make the hard choices to survive in that game. You can’t make a game depicting the horrible events of South Sudan? Don’t give me the cost answer, because if you’re willing to sink money into lying to people about your agenda you should be damn well ready to sink money into the honest version.

Thank you for reading.

Here’s the link to the UNICEP video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN6Wc-9r3l4

Metro: Last Light: My thoughts on the game as a whole

Last Light is a post-apocalyptic first person shooter. Everything I say is my opinion based on my experience. This is my first review and written review so if i’m missing anything or made a mistakes I’d love feedback. I’ll be breaking my dissection down into five categories:

Video Options (I’m a pc gamer so options are pretty important. If you’re a console gamer just skip on down to graphics).

Graphics.

Gameplay.

Story.

Environment (Sound is included in this).

The video options menu is less than satisfactory. Pc gaming is extremely intricate and requires the correct mixing and matching of settings in order to get the most optimized performance out of your games and gaming rig. Not everyone can have an expensive gaming rig that can overpower any game on the market *Cough Totalbiscuit*. Many like myself have to depend on lesser scale Pc’s and deep options menus.

The video options in Metro are extremely basic. Metro gives you seven video options:

Resolution. This can range depending on you monitor/TV requirements.

Quality. Ranges from Low to Very High.

SSAA. Ranges from Off, Auto, 2x, 3x, 4x and 0.5x.

Texture Filtering. Ranges from AF 4X to AF 16X

Motion Blur. Ranges from Low to Normal.

Tessellation. Ranges from Off to Very High.

Vsync. Can be ticked on or off. Recommended on for higher tier rigs to prevent screen tear.

My problem is similar to Metro 2033 in that the game settings control more than they say it does. You play a game like Borderlands 2 that has a multitude of settings. Quality isn’t just one overhaul. You can control quality of guns, bullet detail, terrain, distance and it doesn’t force filtering. I never use filtering, because I honestly cannot tell the difference and therefore have no use for it. Why should it be forced to X4? For lower rig users like myself it just serves to lower frame rate. The same can be said about Motion Blur. In my experience Motion Blur does not hinder frame rate massively, but personally I do not use it. Maybe i’m just spoiled by the depth of other games and their video menus, but this game would work a lot better if I could tinker with everything not just everything as a whole.

  Now that I’m finished whining about the video settings how does the game look after i’m done tinkering? Fantastic! I’m not joking. I play on extremely low settings. Metro just looks beautiful. It looks real. I could just touch my screen and a monster would eat my hand. I haven’t seen any spots where id remark to myself “Well this was poorly designed.” Even the monsters look real. I would go farther with this, but I’d be entering environment territory. Something that I really want to talk about last for good reason.

  “It looks nice, but how does it play?” all old-school gamers said in unison. Metro: Last Light plays very well. The controls are very responsive for key board and mouse. Controller I can’t say, because I dislike first person shooters with controllers. It feels so awkward to me. I’ll bet it feels the same on a controller as it does for me and my keyboard and mouse since the Metro series was ported over to PC. It all comes down to preference in the end though.

Everything in this game is reactionary. How fast you can turn, shoot or run depends on you. Every control is instant.

There’s two other parts to gameplay pulling a one man army and gun fighting everything in sight or stealth. Either option is viable depending on your style of play. The stealth aspect is really “eh”. As long as you stay in a dark spot you will not be seen. You are afforded a moment of being in lit areas where guys are looking right at you. They will be alerted and act suspicious for a moment or two depending on how long you were seen. I dislike this since I can be in a shadowed spot flipping the guy the bird and he still doesn’t see me. I would love a noise feature to this. You make noise by moving too quickly and the enemy will turn their flash lights on to look for you. It’ll add a bit more suspense. I have run through stealth areas in 5 minutes. Stealth should never be that easy. Yes I was playing on Ranger mode.

  As for the story you’re in an eradiated Russia living in tunnels under ground constantly fearing for your life from monsters and all sorts of things (Needed to be a bit vague or I’ll spoil story elements). You tell me? I was into it from the get go. If you’re a gamer who literally gets enveloped in the story and the world you will love this.

  Here’s where I fan boy. I love the environment. I said “the game looks so real.” It feels it. When i’m walking around areas I feel scared. I feel like something is going to come out and eat me. Even when I know something’s there and I have the best gun in the game I still fear for my life. I play with a gaming headset that replicates surround sound so when I hear something I actually turn my head. On a TV you may not have the same effect, but I’d still be turning my head in game and seeing nothing. Then when I turn back i’ll see nothing. Then I’m die. How? I don’t know. I just fell in love with the way the game looks. Watch some gameplay with no commentary (Good luck finding that) and a pair of head phones and you may feel my feelings. I hope you do its awesome.

Metro is linear so the games replay value is shallow. You can go back through and find in game information and try new guns, but to me once I’ve heard the story i’m basically done. It is still very enjoyable. It’s a movie you can play. Usually a movie you can play is a bad thing, but you do have control 90% of the game. Be wary of those few quick time events. I hate quick time events. Let me react on my own darn it!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

My thoughts about the Boston Bruins after their 6-4 loss to the Montreal Canadiens.

Good game Montreal you played a better game out there. I will say that the penalty on Lucic was absolute bullshit. Emelin turned into the boards on his own, but that should not have been a factor at all. You played like the big fat Bruins of old. You for some reason cannot clear the net for Rask. You did it for Tim Thomas who would go to the blue line for a save, but not for Rask.

Also Claude, um you’ve put Griffith, Kelly, Gagne (Too late) Paille and Eriksson on the first line, but not Reilly Smith or Tyler Seguin when he was here. Why in the holy mother of all that is incandescent do you not put the offensively gifted players with the offensively gifted center? You put them with Bergeron instead. I love Bergy. He is the best two way player in the game. Toews and Datsyuk have Zetterberg, Kane and Hossa with them. Bergeron has… Marchand who I swear is only here to act like a child on the ice. Grow up and play the damn game! Smith is the other winger. Bergeron is not used to his full offensive ability. Putting offensive players with him is pointless. Claude your schemes don’t help the team. They’re destroying the team. ‘But they won the cup with it!’ Yes, because Cam Neely told Claude to knock it off in the playoffs.

I just don’t know anymore. Balance wins championships. We don’t need a 50 or even a 40 goal scorer. I just want one player who can be a consistent scoring threat on the ice. Lucic is not that. He’s an Ogre with cement for hands. He hits and passes. You know like the rest of the team. We’re a team of two way forwards, grinders, two snipers (One of which is 50 years old and the other is unproven, but i’d love to see Smith with Krejci) and one play maker.

We also lack speed. Here’s our speed: Bergeron (Again he isn’t used to his full capability), Marchand (Spends most of his time in the box) and Paille. Yeah that’s it. Soderberg, Eriksson, Smith, Kelly, Gagne, Campbell and Krejci are middle of the road at best. If I slid a statue across the ice i’m pretty sure the statue would beat Lucic in a race. Krejci is as slow as Lucic, because that’s his game, but he isn’t fast. How about a Bobby Ryan power forward? A player who can score, skate and smash? Nahhhhh we’re too busy paying Kelly 3 million. Maybe a fast forward that can score between 30-37 goals. Pffffffft doesn’t belong with their system. I mean it’s not like the Kings won a cup with a player who doesn’t belong……….. Oh wait I forgot about Gaborik. Oh well it was most likely a fluke. Not like the Kings have won two cups in three years……….. By the way: Lucic makes 6 million. Bickell on the Hawks makes 4. Now tell me the difference between these two?

Do I even need to talk about the defense? You trade Boychuk off a team that has an aging star. You trade a veteran off a team that needs to win now before the guy they built around is gone….. Am I watching the Boston Bruins or the New England Patriots? I can’t seem to tell the difference anymore. The uniforms look different, but I don’t know if that matters.

Good luck guys. You give me a migraine.

My Thoughts on Gameinformers top 25 horror games of all time.

So I decided to pick up my unread Gameinformers and big shocker one of them is the “Halloween” edition for this year. Toward the middle of the issue they had a top 25 “horror games of all time”…. Yeah I feel a rant coming. I’ll focus on a few from the top 10.

Number 8: Left 4 Dead……. Left 4 Dead is not scary. You know what’s scarier? #16 Fear. #12 System Shock. Are we serious here? Left 4 Dead scary Hah! The amount of ammo and weapons you can find pretty much destroys any horror you’d feel.

Number 6: Resident Evil 4….. Great game, but it’s not exactly frightening. It has moments, but Fear and System Shock 2 blow it out of the water. Same way I feel about Left 4 Dead is present here. There are so many guns you can find that’ll make the game less scary and easier too. Plus the merchant whom I love and have annoyed my mother many of times by talking to him, but he makes the game way too simple. Still a better horror game than Resident Evil 5. You know the game that hands you 90% of the guns on a platter. Only fear in that game is your partners AI.

Number 3: Dead Space. I just…… Its jump scares. It becomes predictable very quickly. If they’d backed off from the jump scares and kept just a quiet atmosphere (You know like space) it would have been a lot scarier. Imagine walking down a hallway and having guys who make no noise move in on you from in front and behind you. Not you know “AHHHHHHGGGGAHHHHHHHGGG!” Kind of kills it you know? A touch of subtlety is always welcome. You have to get the player into it so when they look back they remember nothing about what they previous saw due to the fear of what’s to come. It’s tough to do, but very doable.

This is me nitpicking, but it just bugs me that this overhyped crap can move into the top 10 area by doing nothing. I know its all opinion based, but if you’re going to argue this crap, you need to be able to back it up. They don’t. They just praise it without saying why it so deserves. Let me into your head and see your point of view and I wouldn’t have been as annoyed. Fear gets me every time I play it. Then again i’m not a gamer who only plays horror games. That’s a bad idea, because you’ll start to see patterns quickly. Need a good amount of variety. Left 4 Dead, Dead Space and RE4 I never found scary Hey what do I know anyway? I mean I didn’t purchase Titanfall or Destiny. You know overhyped crap.