I found this to be an interesting article on Kotaku regarding an upcoming game called Life Is Strange.
Apparently Dontnod shopped the game around to a number of different publishers before going with Square Enix, and it turns out most of them wanted to change its protagonists into men. That would have been a real shame, but luckily it didn’t happen.
Not surprising that Square Enix would have no issues with female protagonists, considering they had no problem with the Tomb Raider reboot. It’s still rather disappointing that quite a few companies would want to change something as stupid as gender. I mean, it’s the 21st century and this is still a hurdle? Why would some of these companies think females are a risk? Maybe it’s just me, but I never looked at a character as the ultimate say in if a game is great or terrible. For me it comes down to gameplay, story, dialogue etc. If any of those attributes are met well enough they can still be great if the other attributes are lacking. Like say for example if a game has great gameplay but the storyline is dismal, or vice versa.
I hope this game does well, if only to shove it in the other companies faces.
So tonight I found out that boiling sake and honey together is really really good. I’ve come down with a cold recently, and I’ve been taking allergy medicine plus cough drops/syrup to help keep things together. But I wanted to go an extra mile and found a nice remedy that’s got me feeling good and tastes pretty nice. Especially since it’s just two ingredients.
Just add 1 tbsp of honey to 6 oz of sake and warm it up and serve. I might try adding some lemon and ginger to another batch tomorrow.
I’m going to try something new and talk about games that I play during my lunch breaks at work. On long days I always bring my gaming laptop along to kill my hour lunch. Usually with swords or guns of some kind. 😛
Today I played a hack n slash platformer called Abyss Odyssey. It’s an indie title by ACE Team, the creators of the Zeno Clash games.
It’s a very beautiful game. The music and scenery are calming while you wander around in the abyss. Which is like a giant labyrinth of death with the occasional wise skeleton who imparts his wisdom on you if you pay him 100 gold. 😛
The goal of the game is to get to the bottom of the abyss to kill the sleeping warlock. His dreams become living things, and you are one of the products of his imagination! That would be like if my dreams became reality while I was sleeping… we would all be sooooooo screwed.
Then when I got tired of that I still had a few minutes to kill before heading back. So I started up one of my latest favorite wastes of time:
Made by Dejobaan Games, the same company who made Drunken Robot Pornography, AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity is what I would call a falling simulator. You collect hugs and kisses, points (which are called teeth) by crashing into certain things and surviving your falls etc etc. It’s a very twisted game. When you don’t feel like falling you can even unlock different forms of meditation among other things…
Regular meditation:
Not so regular meditation:
So, in retrospect I guess I can say that I had a very indie lunch today. 😛 Oh, also I ate actual food. Can’t game on an empty stomach…
I’ve promised myself that I wouldn’t mod the new Metal Gear until I finish at least the first run through. But I’m definitely adding this to my list of things that need to be done when I finish.
From what I’ve been reading it’s surprisingly moddable. You can change the weather and, as you can see swap out the models. Like replacing Snake with Kojima.
Metal Gear titles for the PC should have been continued looooooong after MGS2.
For Christmas I got an interesting blend called Honey Yuzu. It’s a green tea blended with Japanese Yuzu fruit, honey and some citrus peels from oranges and grapefruits for a bold flavor.
Guess I’ll have to add Tea Forte to my list of tea purchases. 😛
I ordered some headphones as a birthday present for someone, sadly they have to be returned because they appear to have been used by someone who wore copious amounts of hairspray and hair glitter. So I wrote newegg through ebay, hopefully a resolution can be met.
On the bright side they included a $100 wine voucher for a website called Naked Wines. So I guess I get to go on a little shopping spree. 😀
Hollywood seems to think that Google Fiber will lead to more piracy of their movies.
It’s not a secret that Hollywood and Google are constantly fighting over piracy issues. While most of the public comments are made on search, there’s another Google product that terrifies the movie studios. Leaked research reveals that Hollywood fears a huge piracy surge due to Google fiber, predicting a billion dollar in piracy losses in the U.S. alone.
Perhaps if everyone were forced to use dialup Hollywood wouldn’t feel so uneasy. 😛
I figured I would do something different as an end of the year blog post. I’m going to talk about games that I’ve finished this year. Yes! Out of all the games I have there are actually some titles I can honestly say that I’ve finished!
This was up there in terms of games that I could not put down at all. Every night when I got home I HAD to get further into this game. I was captivated by not only the beautiful graphics and the extremely pancake thin french fries. But also the characters and their roles in how everything played out. I kept wanting to find out more about Elizabeth, Booker and those creepy twins that followed me around.
Seriously I almost expected them to appear in some random hallway, saying “Come play with us Booker, forever and ever and ever and ev…”. Yeah… That game was one hell of a circle jerk. But I loved every moment of it. I still need to play the rest of Burial At Sea Part 2 though… and finish the other BioShock games. 😛
I finished this game as a siren, and now I’m replaying it as a mechromancer. I had a hard time getting into Borderlands 1, but that might have been because I had no one to really play with. Plus gamespy always pissed me off (but with it being steamworks now I’ll have to reconsider). I loved the writing behind Borderlands 2, all the characters were amazing and there were even moments that had me busting my gut from laughter. I think Handsome Jack has to be one of the best villains ever created! And the whole storyline was an absolute pleasure to get wrapped up in, and even more fun to play with friends and family. I intend to play all the other classes too. Still need to tackle the DLC for those, but now that the steam sale has arrived, and I’ve been passing around DLC left and right. I think I’ll be able to get around to that. I imagine by the time I play through all the classes AND finish Borderlands GOTY, Borderlands the PreSequel will be cheap enough to snatch up. 😛
I don’t have much to say about Jazzpunk because really, it speaks for itself. I’d say it’s really up there with The Stanley Parable in terms of uniqueness. It’s so abstract, nonsensical and filled with the kind of humor that you would expect from Get Smart or The Naked Gun Movies. You never really know what you’re going to encounter next in Jazzpunk. One minute you’re standing in the middle of a beach, the next you’re playing Wedding Qake, or fighting some honda.
And last but not least…
When I first saw this appear on Steam back in the winter of 2013 for pre-order I was surprised that a Metal Gear title of any kind graced the PC master race. I was aware of the fact that this release had no Snake or Big Boss… But that didn’t stop me from getting it. At the time I didn’t really know who Raiden was or where he fit into the Metal Gear universe since I never played MGS2, so I was willing to give the game a fair shake. In all honesty I liked the game a lot more than expected. Don’t get me wrong, at first it was hard for me to really get into. Not because of the lack of it being a Metal Gear Solid game, but because it was a bit hard to learn for me even on easy. But after a few bad days of work and wanting to slash through the world in anger I got a nice taste for the game as well as properly practicing the controls. Plus when this video was shared with me I suddenly had the desire to continue playing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JA5uw4d-Y4
It was fun. I look forward to seeing more Metal Gear titles appear on PC, and I wouldn’t mind seeing all the older ones ported over as well, and maybe even a sequel to this one. 😛
Well, that’s it for 2014. Lets see what the new year has for us, regarding gaming, technology, and real life matters. I look forward a happy, better, newer year.
