Wednesday, November 21, 2012

5 Dumbest Things Gamers Do on the Internet

Gamers are known for a lot of things, mainly complaining a lot. At times I can actually agree with a well written rant about frivolous DLC, or how bad Kinect Star Wars is, because those kinds of things are plaguing the game industry, in one way or another. But sometimes, there appears a biased comment that grows like a contagious cancer on Chuck Norris steroids, devoid of all reason or logic that’s only meaning is to ensnare others into believing that it’s offending their very right to game. I’m talking about ridiculous bullsh*t like… 


5. Complain about Visual Gimmicks. 

Visuals are an important part of a video game. On one hand, it really doesn’t dramatically change gameplay, but on the other hand no one would want to play a modern game as a 64-bit Bubsy mutant. For me, it’s the cherry on top, and even if it’s not there I wouldn’t mind looking at an ugly game if the controls and gameplay were perfect. Though I might make a slight exception for Sin and Punishment 2’s macabre looking demon children.
 

GAH!

But it isn’t graphics that gamers complain about the most, it’s the gimmicks like lighting, clothes ’chipping’, and other little things that make up a game. I can’t blame them for wanting good lighting in a horror game or perfect visuals in a cut scene, but what really gets under my skin is when practically everyone goes into rage mode over some stupid insignificant imagery. Like when Alan Wake players went apes*** complaining over the game’s visuals not being up to par when you zoom in 300x times.

You see it all the time without even realizing it. There’s always a “grey games are immature and gory” and “colorful games are gay” argument going on somewhere in the internet, and these people are proud of being arrogant over supposedly opposing art styles without even playing a game in that art style in their lives to even compare. It’s totally okay to like Pokemon over Call of Duty, but to go out and say every X game is better than their Y games just because of the art style, you are no better than they are. I played both Mario Kart DS and Resident Evil 4, and to me they’re completely different but equally amazing games in their own way. No where in my mind was I criticizing them for their looks, because I was too busy shot gunning zombies in the head or ‘snaking’ down the track to care. That’s what we should do; shut up and enjoy the game for what it is. Yet whenever a new Zelda is announced the first reaction is always to start an argument over “THIS ZELDA LOOKS GAY!” “SHUT UP YOU COD PLAYING @#$%!” What about gameplay? Will the controls be authentic and precise? What’s Zelda’s role in this game? There’s so much more to talk about, why are we limiting ourselves just on the visual factor alone?

And this is what game developers have to deal with. This is why Konami is working hard to make boobs in Dead or Alive 5 hyper realistic as well as see-through bras, because that’s what we want. The only thing we know about Senran Kugura Burst is giant busty ninja breasts, yet people want it localized without even considering, you know, plot line, gameplay or any other factor that makes us crave Japan games in the first place. If I wanted to be a pervert I could, oh maybe go on perv-y sites (disclaimer: I don’t) and see it for free, but why pay for it? I know a majority of gamers are guys, but come on now, use your heads! You play games with your thumbs, not your pants! 


The entire plot of this game.

But probably the worst, and I mean the worst, visual gimmick complaint is hands down the one spawned by Sonic fan boys outcry to Sonic’s Green Eyes in Sonic 4: Episode 1. And note that Sonic had Green Eyes long before this game, but as soon as SEGA uttered the word “Retro” and showed clips of Sonic running, green eyes and all, it created such a s***storm of complaints you’d think “Green” was a code word to set off insanity in their brains.


”Green Hill Zone? GREEN?! GREEN EYES?!?!?! RRRRAAAAGGGHH!!!!!”

Look, I know visuals are important to you, but they’re only gimmicks. You’re making people wait longer for a crappier game just to arouse your perverted curious 13 year-old brain. You’re complaining about things you cannot change, but won’t change your thoughts once the final product is done. Sonic has green eyes BUT HE’S STILL SONIC. They’re not changing your Mass Effect into Mass Chicken Attack: Plus 30 more Family Games, or changing Mario Kart into Mortal Kartbat, so why complain? 


4. Go Into Douche Mode Whenever Someone Performs a Speed Run. 


You know when you’re awesome at playing a video game when you can speed run through World 5-1, collect every single power-up on the way, and give the middle finger to the Hammer Bros like an invincible mid-air ninja boss. It takes great skill to pull off awesomeness, and no matter who says what, you’re still the speed run ninja master. 


"You a-can a-suck it!"

So what do expert speed runners get for their hard work? A long list of name calling of course.

Check out the hateful comments for this 6 hour speed run for Majora’s Mask. Notice how amongst every sane comment there’s at least one bad comment telling him to “play the f***ing game like a regular person”. I know there’s plenty of awful people on the internet, but this is in no way a reason to go into full on douche bag mode and start flailing blackmail. What’s worse, their reasons behind being douche-y make absolutely no sense. The common slander towards speed runners, “you have no life”, is so hilariously hypocritical in this situation that the irony from reading that comment went straight through my brain into my lower intestines, which echoed a consecutive number of farts that resembled the tune to “Loser” played backwards. If these douchebags had a forum, you could smell the bulls**t through your moniter’s speakers every time someone posted their URL. They claim that the speed runner has no life, yet they will gladly go thread to thread, like a flamboyantly gay Honey Nut Cheerios bee, and waist their own time telling others, who’ve used that same time to perfect something, that they’re wasting their lives. Can you say paradox?


"Ah, another great day to waste my life on the internet telling how bad people are!"

Another biased comment that makes absolutely no sense is “when you speed run through a game, you‘re not having fun!”. They’re literally saying that it’s perfectly A-OK to play a game for 500+ hours, but as soon as you speed run it YOU’VE KILLED THE FUN!!! Wow, that’s like saying NASCAR racers aren’t having fun because they’re not on the road with all of us in traffic going 5 mph. Who says speed running isn’t fun? Have you tried it? It takes skill and quick reflexes, and it takes patience. Why does everyone have to play the same game the same way? If we’re not playing the game wrong then what you bitching about? And who says using glitches or short-cuts is in anyway “mistreating” the game? Not only do you have to perform them right in order to bypass portions of the game, but finding those Easter eggs was a huge task to begin with. Speed runs are supposed to be as quick as possible, so why not use what the game offers, directly or indirectly? 

So stop acting jealous, and give our gaming vets a pat on the back. They’ve deserved it.


3. Get Hyped Over Everything. 


It happened just this last E3: I was just sitting in the chair, waiting for Spike TV to broadcast the Nintendo Conference Live. I was stoked; maybe they’ll announce a Four Swords, an Elite Beat Agents sequel, or -gasp- a new IP HYPE HYPE HYPE!! Well, the conference came and gone, and I didn’t get what I want. But I wasn’t totally disappointed; what Nintendo had to show was pretty nice, and a couple years down the road I’d be playing those games.


But seriously, Reggie, where’s my Four Swords game?

But my wish list of predictions was tame compared to the internet’s Tasmanian Devil hype train of requests: F-ZERO, POKEMON RUBY/SAPPHIRE REMAKES, SMASH BROTHERS 4, NEW ZELDA, MARIO KART WII U, AND EARTHBOUND 4, EARTHBOUND 4, EARTHBOUND 4!!!!!! Really, you expected all that and Earthbound 4? Granted, everyone is entitled to voice their own predictions before the show, but let’s be logical here, Earthbound??? Followed by a 4???????? That’s like saying the next Apple unveiling will be an Ipad that’s so dramatically different from the previous iteration that the mere sight of it will melt your face off from the sheer awesomeness of it’s sleek new 0.00004” design, and also Jesus and Steve Jobs will descend from Heaven riding Unicorns giving away these bug and glitch-free Ipads to everyone who watched the conference, and there will be world peace and everyone will be happy, the end. 


“And on the third day Steve Jobs made everyone happy or something.” - SEGA Genesis, 42:007. Source via Wikipedia.
 
I’m not saying hype is bad in itself. It’s when we expect so much from something to the point where we turn a little speculation into rumor into fact is what is truly terrible. It gets to the point that you have to stop in awe at how everyone reacts so ludicrously whenever something is announced. Whenever a new Nintendo Direct is around the corner, and no matter what Nintendo tells us, the same reaction is always F-ZERO, POKEMON RUBY/SAPPHIRE REMAKES, SMA- you get the point.
 
But please, for the sake of not embarrassing or disappointing yourself, expect less. The less you expect, the more surprised you’ll be when they actually announce something you’ve been dying to see. Maybe, it could be Earthbound 4? (No, not really) 


2. Nerd Rage Whenever a Game is Ported or Remade. 


Bayonetta 2. A game that created such a pissed off hate storm of swirling sh*t when it was announced for the Wii U, you’d think that after it subsided you’d see naught but lifeless bodies of gamers who’s nerd rage caused widespread internal heart attacks.


This leg shot alone killed 50,000 people.

But they deserve to be mad, right? Nobody wants to buy a whole new system just for one game (I’m looking at you especially, Kingdom Hearts). It’s just a ploy from Nintendo to get the ‘hardcore’ gamers to buy their console - game companies just want to rip you off as hard as they can.
 
But it wasn’t that way. Platinum Games never intended of making a sequel, in fact they were going to dump it altogether when Captain Nintendo swooped in to take publishing control. It’s the only reason why we’re getting a sequel in the first place. Yet the complaints from gamers was madness, and no one was honest enough to admit that pointless bashing towards Nintendo’s ears was not going to solve anything. Not only did they bash Nintendo, but they bashed the Wii U, which wasn’t even released at this point, simply saying “I don’t play awesome games on Baby Consoles!” because apparently people like being labeled as douche bag Xbot stereotypes.


This guy.

This bashing of ports has been going on for quite a long time. When Mass Effect 3 was first rumored, and I said rumored, for Wii U, the prior fans of the series would spam the news boards with cries of sour 5 year-old hatred. When Ocarina of Time was announced, people put on their douche monocle, sneered up their noses, and said “Well WE played this game before”. Nintendo gamers are no different: whenever a game like DeBlob or No More Heroes appears on a different console, they act like the game has become poison and is unplayable now. Man, it really sucks having all your life’s stock in Okami for PS2 only to see it getting ported to a different console, doesn't it? What, you don’t own stocks for Okami? And that’s not how stocks work? Then what are doing with that monocle, sir, because you are no gentlemen.
 
Why is this a problem? What’s so bad about games getting ported? That’s a good thing! It not only gives others a chance to play them, but it also gives developers more money…to make more of the games you like! Take off those hipster glasses (the ones below your monocle), because Third Party exclusive sequels are terrible and your constant fanboy pouting isn’t helping developers make the right choice. If you feel that going into forum threads just to post a biased hateful rant in all caps and then leave is the most logical mature reaction to anything, you need to see a physiatrist. Preferably one that greets you at the door with his fist to your stupid face.  


1. Act Like Review Scores Are the Holy Gospel. 
 

Just last week, Metacritic gave Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 the score 86 out of 100. This has lead to many complaints from both sides, from the haters claiming it’s too high, to the CoD junkies whining it’s too low. No matter what score a game gets you can bet there will always be a flurry of complaints, and all of it from just one critic’s opinion and a decimal number.


Silly critic, this game is obviously a 71.2457.

“Skyward Sword got a 7.5 AAAAAAHHH!!!!” “6.5 is too LOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!” “This game does NOT deserve a 9.0 ARRGH!!!” Wow, gamers complaining about numbers!  How, just how, did we stoop this low is a question I can’t even begin to answer. What I do know is that it’s f***ing ridiculous. Not only is a game’s score overreacted, but it’s like only thing gamers are concerned about. When the Wii U reviews came in, the complaints weren’t why the game(s) got the score they did, but the scores themselves. As I said before, there’s some factors I don’t judge a game upon and this is one of them. “6.5 out of 10” or “4 out of 5” is such a vague way of describing a game, I’m blown away at how many gamers actually care.

But you do care, because it effects your own score. Wait, no it doesn’t: your score is your score, and their score is their score. Why is this a problem? What makes IGN’s opinions better than GameSpot’s? If the reviewer is honest to why he give the game the score that he did, than that’s that. They’re not going to cater to only you. You don’t go into a store and say “Well gee, this game got a 7.5 but this one got an 8.5. I guess the latter is automatically better”, because if you do, you’re basing your thoughts not from someone’s review, but from what number they gave it. I’m not saying you should never use the scoring system, but don’t make it your primary decision maker, because it doesn’t work that way.
 

One of these got a 3.7 and is filled with nitric acid.

Look, sometimes it’s perfectly fine to complain - when under control. But you’re giving gamers a bad rap. We really don’t need a stereotypical reputation along with your rant about how Call of Halo: Black Nukem 7 got ported to the Wii UU with a green eyed protagonist and unfairly got a score of 1.5 or something.  
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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Bad Eggs - Color A Dinosaur

Welcome to Bad Eggs! We take one bad game from the dark annals of history (the dark path across from Wal-Mart), play the game despite our unnerving gag reflexes and post the results here with maybe some images to show of our harrowing journey. So sit back and put a clothes pin on, because it’s going to get real nasty in here.

Remember the good ol’ days of gaming where you’d ask your parents for Super Mario Bros. 3, and on Christmas morning you got some educational Super Math Bros. shovelware they picked up at Walgreens instead? Yes, I’m talking about those days. But you should be thanking your parents. At least you didn’t have to submit to the horrors of what could be the worst shovelware that Nintendo allowed the sacred gold seal of approval to be graced upon it’s cover ever: Color a Dinosaur.

The game is exactly like it says; you color dinosaurs. That’s it. They literally thought a coloring book on your TV would be a smash hit. But that’s not even the worst part. You have to see the game in motion to really grasp the insane mentality that these so called “game” developers had when creating this monstrosity.  

                       Virgin Games? Surely no one in history would think that was stereotypical.
 
 As soon as you push that power button, all hope for humanity is lost and replaced by the most ridiculous sounding names I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.  

                      With a name like “Jay Obernolte”, you know you’re getting quality.

And then we come to the Title Screen. Greeting us is the worst colored dinosaur in the universe, accompanied by the game’s title with what apparently appears to be pencils behind it….I think.


                                                             Those are not pencils.

At this point, my still 5 year-old brain sneered at this abnormality to man, picked it’s nose and ate it’s contents, and said with arrogant pride “I could do better than that!” We all could my fat, shorter version of myself. And just look at all our choices of dinosaurs to draw obscene genitals on: 
 

                                                               Gotta’ catch em’ all!

Let’s start with the Stegosaurus to begin our onslaught towards…coloring things or something. 

Um…I’m not a dinosuar expert, but don’t Stegosaur spikes normally lop side like this? 


                             ”No, no your artwork is totes fine. Have some more cocaine?”

But it’ll probably be better colored in. Let’s try the first color: 


                                                                         Artsy?

Wow, that’s…pretty? It’s totally fine, we can just switch back to white…


                                                   Pixel filling pastels, what is this sorcery?!

I’m not even freeze framing that. It’s literally what happens when you apply a new color. It takes the game a full three to five seconds for it to delete an old color and replacing it, instead of, you know, pasting over the previous color? I know this is made in 8-bit, but come on, what is this s***? And at least give us more colors to choose from other than orange, light blue, white, and…polka dots and stripes.

Speaking of which, this is what happens when you paste polka dots over polka dots: 


                                                                 MIND = BLOWN 

Holy s***, pasting polka dots over polka dots gives you polka dots shaped like a diamond! What style! It’s like an Easter egg just waiting to be discovered!  

But why stop now? There’s still a whooping five (FIVE!) unbelievably textured patterns to experiment with!
 

                                                                          Pictured: fun?

I guess it should be said now that pressing the Start button automatically takes you to the dinosaur select screen, so if you spent a good four minutes of your time painstakingly perfecting your polka dot diamonds or something, it’s best not to press that button. In fact, don’t press it at all; the game never saves your progress. That’s right kids, you can NEVER save your creations. Just have the TV on 24/7 instead if you want to share it with your family and “friends”. 

It might seem that we’ve covered all we could about Color a Dinosaur, but we’re not done yet! Yes, by pressing Select you’ll gain access to even more color options!

I lied, it just makes your dinosaur flash and blink for some reason.
 

                     If this wasn’t picked for Game of the Year in ’93 we failed as a human race.

But wait…what’s this?! If you press Select again you get:
 

         Also a message pops up saying “You’re Adopted!”, because at this point your childhood sucks.

Press Select and surprise, it starts blinking. Press it again and you get another one way trip to LCD world.
 

                                            Scales were added for a more emotional art piece.

After another set of obnoxious blinking, we come to the last set of “color palettes” inspired not by Lite Brite, but most likely more drugs. 


                              This whole game is literally a pre-paid DLC pack for marihuana.  

Okay, I’m now entirely convinced that the making of this game revolved around putting unfortunate named color blind people together in a room with a table containing computers, dinosaur coloring books, and cocaine, and then locking the door until they created a “video game” under half an hour. I imagine these people grew up with only five Crayola crayons, and to curse the world for their misfortunate they created this video game to ruin maybe one kid‘s birthday or something. I can’t think of any sane reason why this game even exists.

But enough about that, let’s just have fun finishing up our Stego pal! 


                                               Just as soon as the background gets done loading.

Attempting to color in the eyebrows or pupils seemed to do nothing even with the bold colors, but at least eye color shows up (kinda?). Now to add the seizure inducing final coats aaaaaaaaaaand you’ve just experienced the entire game in two minutes.   


                                               These aren’t tears of sorrow- these are tears of joy.

But think of the amazing art techniques you’ve learned  in that amount of time you can put into practice and perfect down the road! You could become an aspiring art student and pursue a sound career in dinosaur coloring street art! You’re ready for the big shot connect-the-dots and color-by-numbers my friend.
 
But…le Gasp! We just did only one out of the sixteen dinosaurs!!!! That’s ten more minutes of pure fun content!!!!!! 

Why, look at those unfortunate looking f***s! With Color a Dinosaur you can draw such extinct reptiles including the left footed Velociraptor:
 

                                                                              Maybe?

The buck toothed HumpbackIdontgiveaflyingcrapasuarus: 


                                                                   ”I hate all of you.”

The high on crack Iapproveofeverythingasuarus:
 

                                                                ”Waaaay cooool maaaaan.”

The also high on crack Dogondo: 


                                                                    This one likes smoke.

The post-crack addict Artistdrawsawfultailsondinosaurus:


                                                                 Is it’s face melting?

Pregnant JarJarBanksasuarus:
 

                                                     At this point, evolution just gave up.

The EverstaringeyesBarneyasaurass Rex: 


                                       At this point I think we can all agree to set it on fire.

And the Whateverthef***thisthingisasuarus:


                                                                             Ducky?

We sadly only covered nine of the frightful dinosaurs Color a Dinosaur has to offer. If you want to try them all out for yourself or maybe give it as a gift for one of your cousin’s birthday then….don’t, just don’t. Buy them a real dinosaur coloring book. Hell, buy him/her 50 dinosaur coloring books. You could go to a store and not find a worse deal than Color a Dinosaur. And for the love of Pete, get him/her some Crayola crayons and not what Color a Dinosaur offers as “colors“. Your cousin might’ve wanted a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 back then and will probably toss your present aside at first glance, but remember, you’ve done a great deed for letting this game rot on store shelves. Maybe you should go thank your parents for buying you Bubsy: Close Encounters of the Fur Kind and Donkey Kong Jr. Math; because it could’ve been so, so much worse. 

Verdict: Color a Dinosaur not only fails to deliver any form of stimulating coloring book simulation, but also prohibits drawing of obscene genitals in any form or size. Bottom Tier Awful.

What I’d rate it then: -3.5/10

DISCLAIMER: N5S does not in any way glorify dinosaurs taking drugs.
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