Day: November 4, 2014

PSPlus November ’14

Izlain

I missed posting about the Playstation Plus offerings last month, but I did make some commentary on the games therein at some point. To reiterate, it was a poor month for me. This month is shaping up to be even worse. I’m not going to be one of the naysayers who goes on and on about how the quality has declined or how I’m not going to resubscribe when my time runs out. Not only do I need the subscription so that I can continue to rack up games for the eventual PS4 and PSVita that I’ll buy, but also so I can play the older Plus games for the PS3 that I haven’t completed yet, and there are a lot of those. Not only that, but free games aren’t something you can really complain about, because you didn’t really pay much for them. The $5/month or less that it costs to keep up a Plus subscription more than pays for itself when you consider all of the benefits.

Last month I received the D&D Chronicles of Mystara, which I completed in one sitting and was rather disappointed with. It was more annoying than anything, and really didn’t sit well with me considering games like Dragon’s Crown have updated graphics and smoother controls with the same type of gameplay. Spelunky is a game I’ve had on my wishlist on Steam for a long time so I removed it once downloading it for PS3. It’s a rogue-like, and as such it’s been fun for short bursts. I don’t enjoy it as much as some of the other titles I own from the genre, but it’s still not too bad. The furthest I’ve progressed so far is the Jungle, which is after the mines in which you start. It’ll stay on my hard drive for a while, but I’m glad I didn’t spend $15 on it, it is hardly worth that. Lastly, there was Batman Arkham Asylum, which I played and completed years ago, so I’m not sure why they decided to add this to the mix, considering Arkham City was a Plus game a long time ago. I think a newer game in the series would have made more sense, but I’m wholly over the open world questing type games. I’ll play a themepark MMO if I’m in the mood for that, at least then there is deeper character progression. There were PS4/Vita games too, but who cares right now, I don’t own either.

For some reason the release information for this month wasn’t posted until today. I had been anxiously awaiting the lineup, and now I’m not so excited. Predictably, people have been complaining loudly in the comments section about the lateness of the post, and how weak of a month it is. I’d be happy enough if I owned the other systems because there’s more to check out (not to mention the backlog from previous months) but yeah, with just a PS3 I don’t have much to be excited about. Here’s the video:

For PS4, The new remake of The Binding of Issac is out, and that’s a game I would have liked to play. I own the original on Steam, and it’s a blast. This remake is supposed to sharpen the existing game and add some new stuff, but at least one day I’ll be able to check it out. They also offered Steamworld Dig, which is a Metroidvania that’s halfway decent. I have that one on Steam as well so I don’t really feel like I’m missing out much.

On PS3, Luftrausers and Frozen Synapse Prime. The former is another game I already own on Steam, but I still took a few minutes to play it anyway, netting a few trophies. It’s still a great game and now I have the option to play it on either platform, and that can have benefits (such as the Playstation being more portable than a desktop PC). Great game for those who don’t have it, but only so-so for me. The latter game is one I had never heard of, and it actually looks fairly interesting. However, I can’t seem to get it to run. The game downloaded fine. On first startup, it required a patch, which worked no problem. From there, when the game starts, you are presented with a screen positioning option, and once I hit “start,” the system freezes. I restarted the PS3 and tried again with the same result. I deleted the game from my hard drive, redownloaded, repatched and tried again, same result. I’m not sure if I need to wait for another patch, if it’s just my system with this problem, or if I should just uninstall it and pretend like it never existed. Either way, that’s severely disappointing.

On Vita, aside from cross-buy titles, there’s Escape Plan and The Hungry Horde. Both of which I have no idea about, and have nothing further to say. I’ll get to those one day.

So yeah, overall a lackluster month. Again, I’m not complaining as overall I love the service. There was a preview for December and January for PS4, but no information regarding the other platforms. Injustice, an Infamous game, The Swapper and Secret Ponchos will be added over those months. I don’t see why Injustice couldn’t be cross-buy, same goes for the other games as they released on PS3 as well I believe. I guess we’ll see what happens. Until next month.

#psplus #freegames #instantgamecollection

PvP Uncensored

Izlain17 Comments

This post might send some people into a fit. Just a warning. I’m done with the sugar coating. I was inspired by this post and commentary therein.

The debate that never ends is still ongoing. Being pro-PvP means that I’m always in the minority. The latest smattering of posts is now taking aim at my behavior in real life and my character as a person based on enjoying PvP. I’m going to go on record here that yeah, I’m an asshole. I enjoy ganking people. I enjoy having more skill in combat. I enjoy “feeding on the tears of carebears.” That isn’t to say that I go out of my way to grief people, but if the opportunity arises to take out some of the opposing faction/team/guild/whatever, you bet your ass I’m going to take part. And I’ll probably spew all manner of foul language at the screen while I’m doing it.

That doesn’t mean I’m unhinged or imbalanced in real life. I just spent the last week taking care of my sick father, and my elderly aunt who needs constant care throughout the day. If I was as sick and twisted as the anti-PvP portray us, I’d have left them to die, right? Or stolen their stuff and taken off. Something to that effect, right? Just like an example I read where ganking a level 5 character in an MMO is the equivalent of smacking up a child and taking their lunch money. Are you for real? Get the fuck out of here with that shit.

At the end of the day, a virtual character in a virtual world is still nothing but a bunch of pixels on a screen, and though a real live person is controlling said mass of pixels, if they are so incapable of separating their emotional stability from their avatar, I don’t think its me with the problem. I think they might need to re-evaluate why they play games in the first place. I have absolutely no emotional attachment to avatars in games. I may play them for hours, but in the end it’s just a game and it’s not a big deal if they die a time or two in a play session. It’s not as if the game deletes your character on death (though a hardcore MMO like that would be awesome). Get over yourselves.

I equate PvP in video games to playing sports with the boys. We hate each other on the court/field/whatever. We talk shit, call each other names, get into each others’ heads to try and throw off each others’ game. These are societal norms. I guess being a nerd and a gamer means you don’t approve of those “jock tendencies” but I have been a part of both worlds my whole life, so I can see the similarities. Sports are PvP, but in the physical realm. The acceptance of eSports as a “real thing” must mean my analogy isn’t too far off, right? But at the end of the game, you walk away from it and you’re still friends. You aren’t emotionally scarred by the things your friends said to you on the court.

Here’s some PvP anecdotes where things have gone both ways for me:

In Hearthstone I had a Mage try and “be a jerk” by wasting a Pyroblast on my minion instead of out right killing me (I know it wasn’t a mistake as the arrow pointed to me for a few seconds, then moved to my minion, and a smug “well played” followed). I didn’t have enough on the table to finish them (they were down to 1 health) but I got a taunt minion out. They then played a couple of heal minions and ended turn. I top decked a soulfire and with minions won the game. I relished the fact that I killed someone who was trying to gloat and drag out what they thought was a win, maybe even hoping that I would surrender. (This is how you turn that gloating mentality against itself.)

In League of Legends, I have had several games lately where my team has had a commanding lead and rather than quickly end the game, I’ve enjoyed waiting for the enemy team to respawn just to kill them all over again rinse/repeat. I’ve also had it happen to me that way, and ended up turning the game around because they waited too long and the inbalance of power swung the other way, or vice versa. (An example of me being the gloating type, but it has bitten me in the ass as well.)

In MMOs, I have been griefed. That motivated me to do whatever it took to get more powerful in order to get my revenge. If that meant calling for help from my guild, so be it. If that meant shouting in the zone until some random person handed down a can of whup ass, so be it. If that meant I powered my way through the levels and got some better gear, so be it. In the end I didn’t cry about being griefed, I didn’t write lengthy blog posts about how there has to be a better way and waaaaaaaaa I want a PvE server! I just powered through it.

Is it just me or does it seem like 90% of all the people talking about PvP are the ones who don’t even play PvP in MMOs or other games? Why are you even wasting the time complaining about it when you already avoid it? It makes no sense to me.

I’ve used this example before, I’ll use it again. I dislike harvesting and tradeskilling. I have managed to do some of it; really in every MMO I’ve played I tried it out. But for the most part I don’t care for it and avoid it altogether. I’m not wasting my time talking about how tradeskills need to be eliminated. I’m not calling for bans for tradeskills, or a server that has no economy/tradeskilling, am I? No. That’s your game, you enjoy it, cool. It’s not for me so I skip it, and that’s fully my right, just as it is your right to avoid PvP. But why comment on all these other posts, equate PvP to bullying and say that Gankers are lesser people? Do you gain something from that? All I hear are a bunch of butthurt carebears crying about their feelings, and now attacking the character of people like me for enjoying a particular ruleset. That seems more like griefing and bullying than anything I’ve ever done to someone in a game.

I know this post will probably result in me being flamed, but I needed to vent. Have at it, y’all.

#PvPsideup #gankers #nosugarcoating #carebears #flamewars