A New Challenger Aproaches

E3: Abridged - Part III will likely be out sometime Wednesday. I've given Nik the night off to finish The Last of Us.

Today is the day I officially join the Zero Tolerance Games staff. My name is Mike "Tsaikotyk" Kelly, and I've been an avid gamer for most of my life. Like most gamers(and people on the internet in general), I have an opinion, and now, an outlet. I'm a proponent of independent journalism, and with the large number of corporate shills printing grand reviews of mediocre titles, I figured it was time to do my part in holding them to a higher standard.

You may have noticed that there are no ads on this page. Zero. None. It may not stay that way forever, but I can assure you that the philosophy behind this page will not change. I will not bend for the prospect of monetizing my work here, free advance review copies, or miscellaneous swag. The integrity of the writing, and the unfiltered opinions therein, is the foremost priority.

I will be updating on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and co-hosting/editing our (weekly?) podcast. We did record a pilot episode last week during E3, but it went on for entirely too long, and got away from us in a lot of places. The replacement pilot episode should be recording later this week.

If you'd like to know more, feel free to hit me up on twitter and ask. I've got another piece to write.

E3: Abridged - Part II

So, first of all, pardon me for the late upping of part 2 of E3 Abridged.  Part 1 went up on Thursday.  Then Friday happened and with the release of The Last of Us, I haven't had much time to eat, sleep, breathe, or think, let alone work on another write-up.  It's been handed more perfect 10's than any game of note in my lifetime (GTA IV was not a game of note to me), and with the exception of a few mechanical glitches that I've encountered, it's deserved them.

I'll gush about it in a future post.  Right now it's time to dissect:

Ubisoft

Rocksmith 2014 - Ubisoft tried to grab our attention by bringing in washed-up grunge guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains on stage to play the solo from Man in the Box (featured in Rock Band 2 for those of you who were under a rock while the Fake Plastic Instruments genre was at its high point), and then introduce us to session mode, where you can jam on your guitar, while the game simulates the rest of the band for you.  Unfortunately, this is where having had friends that are drummers fucks with me, because the automated drums on Rocksmith are GOD AWFUL.  They wouldn't know how to keep a tempo if you did it for them.

We're then joined by Aisha Tyler wearing the most ridiculous shirt I've ever seen.  #girlwood *snrk*
Good for Ubisoft though.  They realized that their CEO's and lead developers don't exactly have stage presence and someone that's a professional actor/comedian is significantly better at sounding interesting.  With phrases like "Done a lot of dirty deeds to Alice in Chains" and "belly first, ass out".  Way to grab my attention.  Moving on.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Now I'm not really one to judge here because as previously mentioned, I'm not a big fan of stealth games.  However, I can comment that we got to see about 10 seconds of actual gameplay mixed in amongst a lot of pretty cutscenes.  Some vague concept of story was revealed with talk about a terrorist group called "The Engineers" and their attacks being labeled "The Blacklist", but that's about it.

Rayman Legends - Now I find it rather unfortunate that I still haven't gotten around to playing Rayman Origins, which I'm told is the "happiest most fun-filled game ever made".  So, logically, if the first one was good, the second will be better, right?  Well that's what we're hoping happens here.  Lots of more of the same.

Mighty Quest for Epic Loot - Didn't see much of this game besides it's rather humorous trailer.  It looks like a diablo-clone.  Just what this world needs.  Another diablo-clone.  As if I didn't already have Diablo III, Torchlight II and Path of Exile.

South Park: The Stick of Truth - An RPG for people who enjoy South Park.  Which isn't me.  Though I do have to give them credit for being able to poke fun at game delays and launch dates.

The Crew - I'm going to take a second to gush about this segment.  The Crew looks FANTASTIC, and not in the way that Forza Motorsport does.  Ubisoft didn't bring a two-of-a-kind McLaren P1 to the stage.  They didn't give us Driveatars.  What they did show us was a trailer of all kinds of illegal vehicular activity.  Street racing, off-roading, running from the cops.  To be honest, the debut trailer made the game look like The Fast and The Furious: The (good) Videogame.  They talked a little bit about how the whole US was your playground in The Crew.  Open-world racing where the end goal is to take down (or more likely usurp) this criminal organization.  They've created this online persistent world that blends single and multiplayer together.  You and your friends can band together at any time to form a Crew and take on cooperative missions.  Singularly, you can engage in all sorts of challenges.  One of the ones that interested me the most was where you had to race a single car in a point-to-point challenge.  The player was currently driving a high-powered street car, and his computer opponent was in a vehicle more suited to off-roading.  There was no "out-of-bounds".  Each vehicle applied it's strength in the point to point challenge.  The road course was longer, but the player had faster car.  However, the off-road was shorter, but required a different set up.  Ubisoft bragged about the level of customization you can apply to your car, and being able to completely take apart the engine and rebuild it from the ground up.  This is so much a part of the game, that they have designed an app for your tablet or smartphone that allows you to completely customize your car from these devices, and have it available as soon as you return to your console.  Overall, this game blew me away and I'm really excited to see it in the next generation.

Watch_Dogs - Watch_Dogs is back this year with absolutely no gameplay footage.  Just a fancy trailer.  They did unveil to us that Aiden Pierce (the game's protagonist) is effectively a superhacker, whose obsession with surveillance has turned him into a vigilante.  And that sounds badass.  Who doesn't want to be cyber-punk Batman?

Just Dance 2014 - I had to talk about Rocksmith, so I've gotta talk about this too.  Let's see, it's finally coming out as multiplatform.  We got to see a list of pop stars likely to be on the soundtrack, including PSY.  It will support 6-player dances, which is more than the number of controllers that can be connected to any system at a single time, so I guess that's impressive.  There's some weird system where you can supposedly DJ and remix the music by dancing.  It's the next generation of "your favorite party game".  They might need to re-evaluate that statement, because last time I checked, my favorite party game was Cards Against Humanity.

Rabbids Invasion - This is a kid's show with Kinect support built in.  Based on the fact that it is an actual TELEVISION show, with motion-tracking camera interactivity, I'm assuming (and will be pleasantly surprised if) this will remain exclusive to the Xbone.  Because honestly, who doesn't enjoy screaming with their kids at the TV?  Not me.  I'd rather just scream at the kids.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Ah yes, the pirate simulator that everyone's been talking about.  I've tried to involve myself in the Assassin's Creed franchise, but I've never seemed to be able to care.  The social stealth made sense when Altair's costume looked incredibly similar to the monks in the first game.  However, Ezio didn't blend in with a single goddamn Italian.  Being surrounded by 5 or 6 people while wearing an extremely unique outfit does not make you just "disappear".  Try again.  Sorry, off-topic.  AC4 was another game where we saw a lot of shiny trailerness, and not a lot of gameplay.  And the trailer didn't even contain a spot of blood.  There were people getting shot, stabbed, and bashed over the head with bottles, and yet no one seemed to bleed.  This seemed a little out of character for a franchise about ASSASSINATION, but more to the point, isn't that why most people play this game?  For the violence?  Anyways, Ubisoft brags that it's done it's homework on this one and created a realistic pirate experience.  I doubt that being a rapist and spreading untold amounts of venereal disease is part of the core game mechanics.

Trials Fusion/Frontier - The Trials franchise is back with better graphics and a mobile counterpart.  So you can eat shit and break your neck while indulging in impossible motocross feats in a whole new generation.

The Division - Yves Guillemot (Ubisoft's CEO) unexpectedly ran out on stage and interrupted Aisha to present this.  Yet another franchise with Tom Clancy's name slapped on the front of it.  Think of a post-apocalyptic world where a flu epidemic has caused pandemonium across the nation.  No, this isn't The Last of Us, it's The Division,  an open-world MMORPG cover-based shooter.  Now, while I'm getting kind of sick of the chest-high-wall-shooter genre, this game's unique HUD, interactive environment and MMORPG mechanics make me rather curious.

Part III will cover the EA conference.  If I can drag myself away from The Last of Us long enough to write the damn thing.

E3: Abridged - Part I

Ah, E3.  Once a year we get a chance to watch the console gaming industry and its major players publicly humiliate themselves, while trying to convince us to buy whatever it is they'll be pedaling to us in the upcoming year. I've tried to stay atop the news as it unfolded during the long week and with so much to talk about, I decided it was best to break my write-up into pieces.

Microsoft:

After the reveal of the Xbox One, which could only be described as a press disaster, Microsoft decided that it was best to spend their E3 press conference being "all about the games".  You would think this would be a good thing, seeing as how their reveal wasn't about the games at all.  There were no games.  Give me games.  For the game console.

Speaking of game consoles, MS also showed us an "updated" Xbox 360 which looked exactly like the Xbone, and would cost the same as the existing X360.  This was a push for us to purchase their soon-to-be-outdated console before the new one hits this November.  We were also informed that Xbox Live will be passing out 2 free titles a month for Gold (paying) members until the launch of the Xbone.  Something Playstation Plus has been doing since last year.  Thanks for joining us Microsoft.

On to the games they announced for the X360:

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain - MS kicked things off with a trailer for Metal Gear Solid 5.  Either the game comes with an optional slow-down/speed-up time function, or the trailer was a rather poor representation of actual gameplay.  I'm not a fan of the series, but I don't really hate on it.  All I really know is that MGS4 was more interactive cutscene and less video game.

Then we were shown a console specific version of World of Tanks, an online multiplayer game where tanks blow the shit out of each other.  Now, as it stands, I don't know a single person that plays or has played World of Tanks on the PC.  Frankly speaking, this just sounds like an online patch for Battletanx on the N64.  Whatever.

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood.  An indie title that seemed to combine the drawing elements of Okami with your standard 2D platformer.  Now indie games have surprised me in the past.  I'm a huge fan of Bastion and, in fact, most of my favorite games in my steam library are indie titles.  However, we'll have to see how the little X360 title does when it hits later this year.

Dark Souls II - Everyone's favorite ragemaker!  Little more than a fancy trailer was shown for this one.  Though I imagine it's comprised entirely of death and frustration, like it's predecessor.

After telling us all about what we could expect to see on the X360, MS moved into their Xbox One segment.

Ryse: Son of Rome - A game about Roman warfare that seemed rather uninterested in letting you play it.  Almost all of the footage from the press conference consisted of quick-time events and cutscenes.  It was, however, pretty.

Killer Instinct -  Look Microsoft, if we should have learned anything from Squarenix's whole Tomb Raider debacle, it's that we should let franchises from 1996 FUCKING DIE.

Sunset Overdrive - A stylized open-world shooter.  Insomniac Games tells us that it's going to be a living world with user-generated content.  Sounds like Little Big Planet with guns and free running/parkour.  Nifty, but not enough to convince me to shell out the $500 for an Xbone.

Forza Motorsport 5 - These guys actually opened with an ad for McLaren.  Appropriate since they brought on stage with them one of two existing McLaren P1's in the world.  That's right, Turn 10 Studios brought a CAR.  Good for you.  Next time, maybe you can bring a gameplay video and impress me with that. What I enjoyed most about the Forza segment wasn't any of the shiny car footage they'd brought with them, but the word "Driveatar".  A portmanteau of the words "Drive" and "Avatar".  The game learns how you race as you race, then when you're away, creates an AI based on your driving "style".  Interesting.  But realistic racers will be realistic racers, and for that I'd need a driving wheel, which I have yet to acquire.  So I, personally, will stick with my arcade racers.

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition - Okay, the people who like Minecraft are already playing Minecraft on the PC.  A small handful might have the Xbox and mobile edition, but I really don't think that adding Minecraft is going to sell you any consoles, Microsoft.

Quantum Break - Promising to combine both television and gaming, I have little to no hope for this game.  Defiance already tried that, and it fell flat on it's face.  Aside from a shiny trailer with no game footage, we don't have the slightest idea what the story is, who the characters are, why we can stop time apparently... bleh.

D4 - A cel-shaded game about a murder mystery by Swery65.  I actually had to look the guy up to find out that he is NOT Suda51, even though the game trailer makes it look and sound like he is.

Project Spark - This title looks like what would happen if Lionhead Studios, the developers of Fable, made their own version of RPG Maker, or a console release of a Blizzard game's map editor.  After dicking around a bit, they showed us some clips of what the tiny little in-house (I'm assuming) "community" has created.  While some things might have been legitimate games, or just a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, I did recognize blatant Limbo and Geometry Wars rip-offs amongst the clips.

Crimson Dragon - A little bummed that this was a Xbone exclusive honestly.  From the team that brought us Phantom Dust and more importantly Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Dragon basically looks like a 3D "on-rails" shoot'em up, similar to StarFox.  It looked like a spiritual successor to Panzer Dragoon, and as someone who owns Panzer Dragoon, I'm kinda jealous of the Xbone. But not enough to make me buy it.

Dead Rising 3 - Capcom brought open-world zombies to the table, yet again.  They also brought a lot of gameplay footage with them, which was something that actually made me happy.  It's easy for publishers to forget that those of us who aren't in attendance at E3 won't get to see how these games play, and it's important to make gameplay trailers so that we know what we'll actually be getting our hands on.  Otherwise you end up with things like D4 and Quantum Break that I mentioned earlier, which is the high-budget equivalent of showing us the box art.  Sure it looks great, but what does it play like?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - I haven't followed The Witcher franchise, but it's supposed to be some hot-shit fantasy RPG.  There was almost as much talking done by the dev as there was trailer time.  It promised a "multi-region open world", "dynamic and tactical combat" and to be the "defining achievement of the RPG genre".  Frankly speaking, these are all things I've already heard said about Skyrim.

Battlefield 4 - No E3 would be complete without EA waving their modern military shooter dick in everyone's face, and MS got to show off Battlefield 4 during their conference.  Now playing at an astounding 60 FRAMES PER SECOND.  I'm pretty sure this is something that the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race already had.  The highlight of the BF4 segment was watching them fire up the trailer without sound.  Now this happened to Crimson Dragon as well, but they just rolled with it.  BF4's presenter stopped the trailer and restarted it.  When the video lagged out and took forever to load, the guy nearly left the stage!  Oops! Sorry!  Technical difficulties!  Just, uh... go check it out at our booth. It'll be great!

Once the trailer did finally load, it was chock-full of gameplay.  Unfortunately, it's the same kind of gameplay we've seen from every other modern military shooter so, UNIMPRESSED.

This was followed by a trailer for a new indie cave-crawler, and some random trailer for an as-of-yet unnamed "triple A" franchise.

Halo - What Xbox would be complete without Halo?  The trailer really seemed to rip off Journey pretty hardcore and didn't feature anything besides Master Chief in a ripped cloak and some giant robot.  Well, at least MS knows who they're trying to pander to.

Titanfall - Lastly, we got a look at Titanfall, a new game by Respawn Studios (former Infinity Ward employees that didn't get along too well with Activision).  It's a sci-fi shooter that actually intrigued me.  For starters, it's a sci-fi shooter that isn't Halo.  Second, giant fucking robots.  It looks as if everyone gets their own "Titan", which is a giant mech suit that you get to pilot the same way you moved around as a foot solider.  Just from watching the trailer, the game felt really solid.  Standard FPS mechanics, implemented in a sci-fi universe with giant robots and jet-packs.  I honestly wouldn't care if this game didn't come with a singleplayer mode.  The multiplayer looks awesome enough.

That wraps up the Microsoft conference and my opinions on just about everything.  Next up, I'll be tackling Ubisoft and how Jerry Cantrell is NOT a McLaren P1.

Update: Something wicked this way comes...

First off, there should be an article here.  There isn't.  I'm still catching up on all the E3 footage between working and sleeping.  I want to deliver the most comprehensive look at the show as humanly possible.  So the whole of a weeks work will be posted this weekend sometime.

In the good news: I'm currently working with my good friend Mike "Tsaikotyk" Kelly on the Zero Tolerance Podcast which I'm really looking forward to. =)

You can follow Mike and myself on Twitter.

We both said a lot of things you're going to regret...

Okay, so maybe I was a little harsh on the Xbox One yesterday.  I was only going off of things that were known as facts at the time, and since Microsoft has been so gracious as to clarify the features and capabilities of the Xbox One, I feel like I should apologize.

For starters, I was misinformed (as were most) as to the ever-watching electric eye of the Kinect 2.  Microsoft has clarified by saying that "you are in charge of what Kinect can see and hear" and that when "you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded".  I'm inclined to believe them, being that they're a giant money-grubbing corporate whorebag that is releasing a cable box/DVR as a gaming console later this year.

I was also not detailed enough in my rant about Xbox One's online requirement.  The console only requires that you have a connection once every 24 hours if it's you playing your own console.  If you're playing on a separate console while accessing your own cloud-based library, it will require a connection ONCE EVERY SINGLE HOUR.  But don't worry, this won't disrupt your viewing of Blu-ray discs or TV.

I also failed to mention Microsoft's stance on used and borrowed games.  Originally, we were told that gamers could purchase used games and would then have to pay an "activation fee" in order to be able to play them.  This too is false information.  Microsoft came clean by saying: "We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games."  They also clarified with this: "Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers."  The very same third-party publishers that have been scapegoating second-hand game sales for so many of their recent failures.

In closing, I would like to apologize to Microsoft, as well as my readership (assuming I have one), about my under-informed statements.  Thank you, MS.  Thank you for clarifying the absolute horror that is your next-gen console.

And Sony, I'm gunning for you next.

*All quotes used here are courtesy of IGN.com.  You can find there article here.

Rant: Next-Generation Garbage - Xbone and PS-Bore

This article was originally intended as a comparison between the released information on both the PS4 and Xbone, but honestly, after spending the better portion of a day thinking it over, I just couldn't bring myself to write a post about something I just don't give a fuck about.  The Xbone and PS4 just don't interest me, and I think it's partially because I won't be able to afford either but mostly because they're just not needed.  What does the next generation bring to the table that we're currently lacking, or would really benefit from?  Jack-shit, but lets break it down.

Review: Bulletstorm - The Duke Nukem We Deserve

Back in 2011, between Gears of War sequels, Epic Games pulled a "Crackdown" on us.  In collaboration with People Can Fly, they released Bulletstorm - a free game that came with a $60 invite to the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta.  Now I'm probably about to lose all my credit as a gamer and blogger when I say that I actually liked the Gears of War franchise.  Chest-high-wall shooters were still relatively new and, lets face it, YOU HAD A FUCKING CHAINSAW ON YOUR GUN.  So needless to say I didn't actually play a whole lot of Bulletstorm, just enough to know that Steve Blum voiced the main character and that was it.

However, the problem I have with the Spring season isn't the warm weather or the sunshine (though I'm none too fond of those either).  The problem I have is that this is gaming's slow season and I need to find ways to keep myself occupied until the next big shitstorm of triple-A games hits the fan.  So, with a vague memory and a song in my heart, I decided to revisit Bulletstorm.

Bulletstorm casts you into the role of Grayson Hunt, the very caricature of badass.  Former-hit-squad-member-turned-alcoholic-space-pirate, Grayson's got more than just a chip on his shoulder, he's got a fucking brick house.  You don't get a lot of history before crash-landing on some rusted-out overgrown tropical island resort, but that's a good thing because roughly 10 minutes into the game, story doesn't mean shit.

Bulletstorm is one hell of a linear shooter.  The game grabs you by the shoulders, points you in a direction and says "go kill shit over there".  It's pretty standard fare.  In fact, I remember reading a post somewhere on the internet stating that the gaming market is so saturated with aim-down-the-sights shooters that even the shitty ones have solid mechanics.  And they were right.  Bulletstorm is FUCKING TERRIBLE.  The story is practically non-existent, the whole game is point A to point B run-and-gun, the weapons lack inspiration, and don't even get me started on the dialogue.  OH the dialogue.  The one-dimensional characters use the word fuck like it's a comma, just about every "skillshot" is some tongue-in-cheek dick joke, and every cutscene is dedicated to our crew wanting, but trying very hard not to kill each other.

Anyways, the planet is populated by ferocious fucks bent on slaughtering anything that moves, be it from range, or with dual-axes to your face.  So as you wander from decimated building to decimated building, you'll frequently encounter these reaper-esque bastards and have to paint the walls with their brains.  One of the ways Bulletstorm tries to separate itself from the sci-fi shitter genre is by awarding you points for each kill, depending on how creative you get.  These are called "skillshots" and as previously mentioned, most of them are dick jokes or other innuendos.  Everything from the obvious "shove off a cliff" to the rather humorous "flare-gun-up-the-ass", gives you skill points.  These points can then be spent at designated resupply points to purchase ammo and swap weapons.  This is more or less useless, because you can go the whole game with just the assault rifle and collect ammo drops from nearly every baddie you kill.  It is, however, really fun to watch them tuck and curl after you install a hot lead catheter.  Oh, and then curbstomp them.

Over the course of the game you get outfitted with your fairly standard arsenal: assault rifle, sniper rifle, pistol, grenade launcher and shotgun.  Woo fucking hoo.  Bulletstorm tried to be different by giving you a "charge shot" for your weapons, which you had to purchase to unlock, and then purchase charges for.  Fancy way of saying alt-fire.  The dev's did manage, however, to produce a couple of nifty handheld carnage makers that weren't par for the course.  I'm talking about the Flailgun and the Penetrator (teenage giggles go here).  The Flailgun works like a sticky-nade launcher, but what's awesome is the Penetrator.  Keep in mind, that this game was co-developed by People Can Fly, the very same people that brought you Painkiller and it's wondrous stake-launcher.  The Penetrator fires FUCKING DRILL ROCKETS that pierce enemies and drag their carcass to the nearest wall.  If you had fun with Painkiller's stake-launcher and Half-Life 2's crossbow, you'll have a fucking ball with this thing.  The biggest bitch being that you only get the gun about an hour away from the game's ending.  What kinda shit is that?

You also get outfitted with a grappling beam, which is used mostly for interacting with the environment, and less for dragging enemies towards you, since you'll probably forget its existence between required uses.  However, the highlight of the game for me was the "return" of Duke's Mighty Boot.  While neither Epic Games, nor People Can Fly have any ties to 3DRealms' notoriously awesome 90's FPS - Duke Nukem 3D - they have revived the time-honored tradition of melee attacks that involve taking a size 13, shining it up real nice, and sticking it straight into someone's teeth.  Not only does your "Gravity Boot" send enemies flying into pointy and painful things (rebar, cacti, carnivorous plants), it also launches them in slo-mo so that, if inclined, one could empty a clip or two into the son of a bitch before he fries on those open wires.  This is Bulletstorm's single most redeeming quality.  Well, this and General Sarrano's first actual line: "Lick the tears off my dick, mudfuckers!"

All things considered, Bulletstorm is shit.  It's a bad shooter with bad characters and a bad story.  But at the end of the day, it was FUN.  Kicking random faceless psychopaths into powerlines and skewering them with drill rockets was a good time for the whole family.  It's vulgar sense of humor and ultra-violent, ultra-bloody executions, topped with it's foul-mouthed cast really reminded me of the days of Duke.  When he was cool.

Duke Nukem Forever might have been the game we needed.  Because after 14 years in development hell, we needed to know that it could be done.  It could be finished.  But in this reviewer's opinion, Bulletstorm was the Duke Nukem we deserved.