Why Microsoft needs a fresh user base for the Scorpio to succeed.

The moment is almost here and as gamers all around the world count the hours, we get near to the final unveiling of Microsoft's new console, up until now called Scorpio (which is a kick ass name so they should keep it). Now the question is... how can Microsoft convince gamers that their new console is the real deal after the Xbox One lost the battle against the PS4?

The answer is easy... They need a fresh user base with a more open mind. 

Take a moment to think about what happened to the Xbox One. Regardless of how dumb the initial pitch was and how their PR disaster hurt the console's launch, it managed to recover and sold relatively well. Some people thought that they were going to have a comeback in the console race, especially after the console had a really strong Christmas 2016, but once January 2017 came it all deflated and has been practically inert ever since. You want to know why? Well prepare yourself.

The main reason the Xbox One lacked the strength to close the gap was because its user base was really narrow in their gaming selections and that limited not only the amount of players, but also the opportunity of having a good variety of games, which most often than not turn into direct sales of the console itself. Sadly the Xbox One carried the effects of the blight of 2008 and that really hurt the potential of an otherwise awesome console.

What was the Blight of 2008?

I like to call "the blight of 2008" to that period in the previous generation of consoles where all the attention in the market shifted to two three genres which were first person shooters, racing and sports games. Every other genre was basically ignored and month after month the leaders in sales were games in the genres previously mentioned. Don't take me wrong, I love those types of games too, but on those days they were like a giant black hole that was swallowing everything. It was so bad that even the once proud Japanese companies started imitating their Western counterparts in a desperate attempt to have better sales. It was the couple of years that had sad incidents like the president of Square Enix giving his infamous "ultimatum" about them catering to the west and the death of many good games because of  poor sales. This went on and on with many franchises been either changed or dumbed down until the current consoles came and brought back the balance we had enjoyed for the previous 20 years and had momentarily lost in the days of the blight.

So what does the Xbox One has to do with the blight?

It makes me sad to say it, but it seems that some people believed that we are still living in the days of the blight and so they didn't supported anything that went away from their comfort zone as if they were still living in 2008. I am not pretending everybody to buy every game, but sales numbers show that the Xbox One user base was basically saying "meh we just want shooters, racers and sports", which is a thing that discouraged most third party companies of releasing good exclusives for the console and made the Xbox landscape to be based almost entirely of multi-platform games with some few exclusives thrown there now and then.

Don't believe me? Check out these articles:

79% of UK Final Fantasy XV sales were on PS4, 21% Xbox One

ReCore News: Sales Gone Bad? Microsoft Finally Made Their Move

Poor sales continue as Quantum Break hits Steam

You see? Those are examples of one multi-platform and two exclusives not performing well on the console in terms of sales. They were all good games so those failures were uncalled for.

Then what Microsoft needs to do to fix this?

What Microsoft needs to do from today on can be divided in two things. First they need to win over people that fled to other consoles because of the lack of the games they wanted and second, they need to re-educate they loyal fans to support more types of games than they did with the Xbox One. They need to immediately state that the console will be powerful, sexy and with lots of different games to support that power. Otherwise, they may have another Xbox One situation on their hands and that would be really devastating for the Xbox division within Microsoft.

5 things Final Fantasy XV needs in order to equal the older games

"It's been a long time... Too long. Not much longer..."

That phrase at the end of the Final Fantasy XV trailer still gives me chills because it has indeed been too long. Up until now the game looks like it's going to be epic, but at the same time fans of the Final Fantasy games of the golden years (late 90's) are still pondering about if this one will really be the revival of the franchise we were waiting for. Up until now everything points to a resounding "yes", but there are still a few things that the game will need in order to be up to par with its older brothers, so let's see what are those "things" that are mandatory for the newest entry in the series.

Garden Festival (FFVIII)

1) Diversity of Events
Out of every Final Fantasy game in the 90's, we got a lot more than just fighting non-stop in order to advance the storyline. For example we have events like Fort Condor in FFVII, helping Selphie do the garden festival in FFVIII and even the spooky doom train in FFIII (VI). What diversity of events means is that the game needs to put us in all kinds of situations that add value to our experience and give us a little more than just punching our way through the story. The protagonists in FFXV are on a cross-country road trip, so if Square Enix doesn't do this, they will be missing a great opportunity.

How close is FFXV from this?
It seems real close, judging for the city parts, demo gameplay and especially from the footage that shows how the game will be while infiltrating a military base.

Celes thinking about ending her life (FFIII or VI)

2) Dramatic and touching situations
Drama and touching/sad/cute moments are part of what made the old Final Fantasy games so special.Tifa and Cloud talking about their childhood dreams while sitting in the park where they used to play in FFVII and the scene where Celes is singing alone at the top of the hill thinking about ending her life in FFIII (VI) are great examples of AAA story telling and Final Fantasy XV will need this in order to captivate players to a point where the game becomes unforgettable.

How close is FFXV from this?
It seems too early to tell, but at least we know that Noctis has a seemingly deep background story involving his family and the war which shows a lot of promise. Let's just hope that there are a lot more stories like that.

Treno: The Dark City (FFIX)

3) Towns that feel alive
Towns are a big part of what encompasses a good rpg game and as older Final Fantasy games have taught us, a good town in a FF game is one where everywhere we explore we find something cool, be it an item inside a house, a side story or just a cleverly placed dialogue. As FFXV is a next (current) generation game, fans expect it to have towns that mean a lot more than mere resting hubs (I am looking at you FFXIII!).

How close is FFXV from this?
The FFXV demo proved that this can be done in the game, as the garage had a lot of detail even though it was just a small place. They only need to keep this level of detail on the cities that Noctis and his friends will explore and this requirement will be fulfilled.

Zach's side quest (FFIII or VI)

4) Side quests that actually mean something
Older FF games had some side quests in them and most of them had a good purpose and reward, rather than just killing x number of enemies for experience points or fetching something for an item. We all know that the game will be open world and that this type of design makes it hard to add significance to everything, but at least they could throw some quests now and then that makes us feel that we did good when we decided to stray from the main story of the game.

How close is FFXV from this?
This one is really an unknown factor, so we will all know about it when we actually play the full game. If they manage to pull this off even when the game has an open world design, they will definitely receive a lot of appreciation for it.

Sephiroth (FFVII)

5) Have cool and admirable characters
From the days of old up to our present time. Rpg fans have always appreciated cool and/or admirable characters that we can feel catharsis for. Be it a brave girl with a troubled past, an iron clad military general that fights his/her rival on an epic fight or just a mercenary that redefines the term "coolness", FFXV definitely needs to have something along those lines or else it will not be as memorable as its predecessors.

How close is FFXV from this?
Well, the protagonists are cool, but we need some other characters because the heroic/evil factor can't just fall on them alone. The footage where they show the characters going through a military facility shows a mysterious lancer type character (later revealed to be a girl called Aranea Highwind) at the very end of the video so yeah, we may get some cool characters after all.

Game Doctrine E3 Special

Game Doctrine is a little side project I have been working up with a friend and what better way to introduce our little wacky antics than I showing you our E3 special. If you don't understand some aspects of this episode you can look for previous ones so you can see what it is all about, hope you all enjoy it.

Game Doctrine is shaping up to be a channel that mixes up gaming discussion and criticism with a simple storyline and lots of extras that will be added as we go. I know we have a lot to improve, but we are working to make this a better channel and have lots of ideas that we will be implementing in the future. If you liked the video then help us out by liking, subscribing and sharing the video as it will be of great motivation to us.

E3 2015 - Keys to Victory

We are basically 15 days away from this year E3 event and the stakes couldn't be higher. Sony has a big lead in the console war, but the PS4 is running the risk of becoming slow in the sense that their biggest guns are not ready and demand for new games has become very intense. Microsoft has been on the losing side for the last couple of years, only managing to win some months in terms of sales, but the lack of powerful games in the past could lead them to give gamers a lot of good news that have been building up until now. On the other hand, Nintendo has been recovering little by little, relying on their solid fan base. Don't get me wrong, we all know that the Wii U is still struggling (even though it is a very good console with a good game library), but it has at least gathered enough power to survive.

Now let's see what needs to happen for any of the companies to win...

Pros:

• Expectations, having the chance to announce a lot of exclusives.
• The Xbox One fanbase is still strong.

Cons: 

• Out of the Xbox One fanbase, morale is low and people are clearly thinking that Microsoft only cares about certain genres. 
• Many gamers feel left out and have no strong reason that could justify buying the console.

Keys to Victory
In order to win the E3 battle, Microsoft must come up with an attractive offer, not only to their long time fans, but to other gamers too. For example, if all of their announcements are about shooters and sports, the possibilities for them to end up victorious are greatly diminished because neutral gamers (potential buyers at this point) will feel left out and because of this, Microsoft will find themselves in the same place they did last year.

Another thing that they should use to lift themselves over the others would be to take a lost franchise and revive it. The Silent Hill rumor was proven to be false, but it wouldn't surprise me if the higher ups at Microsoft have given Konami a couple calls after seen how gamers reacted on the web making this an opportunity that could make them win this year E3. Other options for them would be to give some love to their own flagship franchises like Gears of War and Alan Wake (which has a small chance of ending up on PS4) in order to use these fan favorites as reinforcements for their new projects (by keeping the platform relevant to their fans while trying to win new ones).

Bottom line
This year it is all about games with Microsoft and they need to have quite a bombing run in order to pull up the Xbox One from the fact that they are lagging behind by more than 10 million units. If they do this right, they can take the E3 event by storm, but if they don't then it will be just another year of them falling behind Sony in the console race.

Sony
Pros: 

• A great market advantage and popularity.
• Gamers still believe in Sony's promise of bringing a new PS2 era.

Cons:

• Their first party lineup for the rest of the year looks weak.
• Most of the previous big announcements are for games in 2016 or have no release date at all.
• Sony is still carrying the burden of past mishaps (the christmas DDOS attacks, Driveclub issues, The Order 1886 failing to meet the expectations of the mainstream crowd).

Keys to Victory

Sony needs to have some big announcements for this E3 event or else they will have a very hard time. For starters they should at least show some game play of Uncharted 4 in order to keep their fan base all hyped off and to prove that the game will be worth the wait. They should also prove that they will have a lot of third party games that the Xbox One doesn't have (mostly from Japanese studios) and that these games can cover up for the fact that the PS4 first party lineup looks kind of empty for 2015.

They also need for their conference to be fun and dynamic because last year it looked as if they could learn a thing or two from Nintendo who has changed their image from dull goobers back to the trolls they used to be in the 90's and this means less of the "boring politician" style and more of a radical feel to it. Another thing that they should also improve in their conference offering is to talk more about games and less about statistics.

Another thing that Sony needs to do is to unleash their speculated franchises unto their fans. Many PS4 users are eager to hear about the new Gravity Rush game as well as the rumored (and apparently fake) Medevil game that took the net by storm because of some picture, so there you have two possible heavyweights. Now last but not least if they really want to give their E3 conference the equivalent of a nuclear bomb, then they should show something about legendary non-existent (at least for now) games like The Last Guardian or maybe revive Crash Bandicoot or Legend of the Dragoon at least. Yeah I know that those last 3 games I mentioned are very unlikely to happen, but hey we can still hope.

Bottom line
For Sony to hold this year E3, they need to keep reassuring gamers that the "PS2 era" that they promised to unleash on the PS4 is still happening. If things are like Andrew House said and 2015 is more of a year of investment and planting seeds for the future, then they need to give us a glimpse of that future or else skepticism will hurt all that they have managed to achieve up to this point.

Pros:

• Fanbase is as solid as ever.
• The Wii U has gone from nothing, to now having the most interesting exclusive game lineup in the console wars.
• Nintendo has recovered from the slump they were into and now they are looking at profits again even though the Wii U console itself it still lagging behind.

Cons:

• Haven't been able to convince enough skeptics to give a chance to the Wii U.
• Legend of Zelda U was delayed and some key games still have no release date.

Keys to Victory

Nintendo is in a very good position for this year E3 even though the fact that they delayed the Legend of Zelda for the Wii U may push you to think otherwise. The first thing that Nintendo needs to do in their E3 Nintendo Direct is to be as straight forward as they can and show the games they have been teasing us about for a long time. We need to see more about games like the Shin Megami Tensei / Fire Emblem crossover, the new Star Fox game for the Wii U, See a little bit more about Mario Maker and of course, finally get release dates for Xenoblade Chronicles X and the new Fatal Frame localization to the west. 

For Nintendo to be able to get a hold of this year E3 (which would be a back to back win, considering that they "won" last year) they need to make their presentation to be both informative and exciting at the same time. So they should once again start with a bit on the wacky side as they did last year and follow through with updates on their games, coupled with some new announcements in order to keep the fan base interested and well seated on the hype train. 

As for the Nintendo World Championships, they need to be as impressive as the one in the 90's or better. We need to see the Nintendo of old still living and breathing in this modern era and I think that the Championships are a good way to show it. If the championship ends up been an over the top event, then it will add up to their whole E3 efforts in a very good way.

Botom line

Nintendo has a real chance here to continue their climb up to the minds of Skeptics that up to this point still believe that Nintendo is only for kids. For Nintendo, this year E3 has to be all about placing themselves in front of the competition and displaying their might for all of us to see, which means showing the games that their platform has and the others don't. If they go around it passively, they will not defend their past year win, so they need to come as strong as possible while giving it that hilarious Nintendo twist that they had accustomed us to in their previous recent offerings. 

So in the end... Who will win?

Like in a sporting event, the game isn't over until its over so predicting a winner is not a wise move. I personally expect Microsoft to come up swinging, Sony keeping a well hidden surprise to us and Nintendo doing their thing without any problems at all. In the end it all comes down to who can shock us or at least give us more enjoyment with their announcements so that #1 spot is still up for grabs.

Some Things That The Lizard Squad Situation Can Teach Us

If you tried to play any Xbox360/XboxOne/PS3/PS4 games with an online component on Christmas day or a day later, you may have been one of the many gamers worldwide that found themselves feeling like a modern gaming version of the guy from Cast Away. This is most especially true (and somewhat cruel) if you got some of the hottest new games/consoles as Christmas presents. Now that most of the dust has settled, we have to admit that even though it was hell on earth for some people, there are some good things to learn about this whole DDOS attack fiasco. As you read, look for the lessons in red even though you may disagree with some of them.

First, take a moment to check your entire game library...

If you take some time to look at your library of games, there is a high probability that you have a lot of games that you haven't really touched in a while even though you haven't finished them. You know why is that? It is because those abandoned games are mostly offline and part of you doesn't want that as you are accustomed to playing online and making progress in order to stay in par with your peers be it in aspects like your character level, rank, equipment/items or just the social value of the online experience.

The thing about all this is that competition/cooperative online based gaming is not the only type of gaming that exists and you may have forgotten that even if the online service is off, you are not necessarily stranded as you may have some offline options that otherwise you would be missing out because of the way you pressure yourself to an online only experience. It is good to let go every now and then and enjoy all the games you have even when they are not an always connected (and prone to attacks) experience. Of course before you scoff at the screen and say that The Gamertologist is an antisocial prick, know that this does not imply that you should just become an offline gamer, it just suggests that there are more games out there that you can play to make the best of such a situation where the online service fails because of stuff like the recent DDOS attacks. Well... now that the so called "Distributed Denial of Service" attack has been mentioned, there is another important thing to point out.

A DDOS attack can be more serious than you think...

The first time we saw the explanation of what happened to the two big online gaming networks during the attack, many people classified it as a simple thing that shouldn't take a lot of time to fix, when in fact recovery can be pretty difficult once the attack happens. There isn't a magical instantaneous fix to a DDOS attack and this is because this type of attack is relentless. You can either prevent it before it happens at full force or suffer the consequences.

Picture this, imagine that you have your own small server with a service that accepts let's say 5000 people connected at once. Now imagine that a group of hackers start sending 5000 simultaneous connections to your server and fill each and every one of your available spaces so now your server thinks it is full and doesn't let anybody else in. You then get aware of the situation and you summon your security crew in order to fight back to dismiss those fake connections, but each time your people manage to clear some of them, more keep coming.

This is the equivalent of a handful of knights fighting an endless horde of orcs on a bridge. Unless you somehow close that bridge they will keep coming, but you won't be able to do that unless you can slay a great number of them and win some much needed time in order to been able to run and set the barricades. So once it happens you can only destroy the bridge (shut off the service) and re-build it (bring the service back again) once the battle is over.

But those orcs aren't even supposed to be able to get near you...


O.k we now agreed that the attacks were not as simple as we thought, but what about the companies themselves? Why is their security not strong enough to prevent or at least minimize the impact of these kind of attacks? The Christmas day incident was completely unnecessary in so many ways that it isn't even funny. This is even more disturbing if we consider that Lizard Squad gave a warning almost a month before Christmas day, so they were either too skeptic or just too lazy. All This means that companies are low-balling their online services, attempting to win a million while spending a cent.

If they are acting like this, then we must pressure them to put some more effort into their network security systems, just so that we don't have to live through those types of annoyances on a service that isn't free. Now on the broader side of things,what's really worrying about the situation is that these types of incidents shows a pretty weak side of the so called digital gaming era and this can mean only one thing...

"Online Digital only" total dominance has been set back for a while because of the attacks.

The lizards have managed to make a really nasty dent the iron clad trust that consumers used to have on these services and that means that the online digital only gaming environment is not be the safe happy place we thought it was. It has become a very nice and convenient service yes, but it has shown that if we ever fully dependent on it there is such a high risk that you may wake up one morning and find out that you have lost all of your games because X group of hackers woke up on the wrong side of their beds.

What Lizard Squad did can never be justified, but we can still at least take the few things that we could learn from the situation and give them some thought. It not only makes you a smarter consumer, but also makes you a wiser gamer and a more conscious tech user that wont be swayed by fads or smoke and mirrors. In any way, we as consumers have to be alert, not only in order to be ready for these kinds of happenings, but also to know the underlying causes and fight against them.

3 Creatures That Would Be Cool To Have As Monsters In Evolve

Evolve is one of those game concepts that is just awesome. If you haven't been following this game you must know that Evolve will be a first person shooter that pits 4 player controlled human hunters vs 1 big and powerful creature (that is also controlled by a player) in futuristic maps where both sides will have to play in a very strategic, but fierce way in order to survive. Up until now they have only shown us 3 creatures which are Goliath (A big bi-pedal grunt-like monster), Kraken (based on the legendary creature) and Wraith (which seems to be a monster with weird powers that was the result of human experiments gone wrong).

Those are just 3 monsters, but there could be a lot more of them coming in the future and that sparks the imagination to a point where we find ourselves thinking about other monsters that could appear in the game. For now let's see 3 of them.

Note: Don't take these as full featured ideas. They are just a imaginative glimpse of what it could be if these monsters were in fact included in the game.

Unicorn

Story for the monster:
The Unicorn could be a mutation caused by the dumping of chemicals and radioactive materials caused by an accident on a forest facility. The creature would be born of these mutations as the local fauna got contaminated. This creature would obviously look nothing like the mythical one as it will be twisted and deformed and its horn could have a form different from what we are used to see.

The Map:
An open facility found in a dense forest. This forest would be most likely covered in fog and will have places where the contamination is just too bad for humans to go in. This map would have several human outposts and natural places like a basin and a small system of caves to help the humans move around dangerous areas. In the human outpost there would have some devices that could be temporarily activated to help keep the Unicorn at bay or even hunt it down.

The Monster:
Unicorn would have its original equine form (horse-like features) with one big horn as the mythical Unicorn does. It would have blinding speed and use this horn to impale its unlucky victims. The creature would also use its hind legs to kick hunters and send them flying and lay on the ground (like a sleeping horse) to hide in the foliage. Unicorn would get even faster as it evolves and would get new powers like throwing lightning out of its horn and been able to jump and do a lunge attack. When the Unicorn gets to its highest level it would be able to use its own grown body to damage its opponents by just running through them without having to use its horn.

Notable Abilities: 
Fast speed, stealth

Monster cons:
It becomes vulnerable when failing to hit with a horn or lunge attack, questionable defense.

Hunter Strategy:
When hunters are pitted against Unicorn they should focus on slowing him down a little so they can damage it. They do so by using some left over mechanisms that are found on the human outposts in the forest. Humans could use the small cave systems to move around, but would not be able to camp there because toxic fumes would fill these passageways from time to time. So they have to move fast and set a perimeter on these mechanisms so they can trap the Unicorn in some sort of time continuum breaking laser barrier that will slow the creature down a bit. They will also have to protect the mechanism from been destroyed by the Unicorn because once it is gone, they will have to hunt the creature while it is a full speed for the rest of the fight.

Hydra

Story for the monster:
The Hydra would the result of thousands of years of artificial inter-species breeding of aquatic and terrestrial animals. Human scientists were basically playing with genetics until this beast was conceived and escaped the controlled environment, hiding in the deepest parts of a giant lake. Several years later the Hydra resurfaced and caused a disaster on a special facility that was built on this giant lake. Now humanity has lost everything that they have learned on this research because the creature doesn't let anybody to get near the facility so that is when hunters come in.

The Monster:
The Hydra would be the walking/swimming type looking sort of like a dragon with multiple heads. It would start as something big, but not that menacing to the hunters. It would be able to swim really fast underwater and shoot toxic or fire out of its heads. On land it would be a lot slower, but would be able to attack with its tail in addition to the toxic/fire attack. As it evolves it would be able faster on land, learn a third attack from its heads that could be a water blast or something similar and also be able to do lots of damage by biting with its heads. On its final evolution it would become huge and be able to ram the platforms on the lake so hunters would have to be very careful of where they step in. It is also important to say that the creature would breathe oxygen from the surface, so it cannot just stay in the water for too long.

Notable abilities:
Proficient at swimming, abnormal body size, good defense.

Monster cons:
Slow speeds while on land.

The Map:
The map would be a facility that goes around the whole lake with several "pads" on the lake itself. These pads would provide long distance harpoons that can be used to strike the creature down. On the facilities around the lake, the creature would have several spots to get out of the water and into the facility itself as well as tunnels to get back to the lake.

Hunter Strategy:
The strategy here is to be able to keep the creature at bay long enough to be able to use the harpoons. The effort really involves the whole team because this creature can cause a lot of damage especially when on its final evolution where it can ram the pads and throw hunter to the water where they are easy pray. First, they have to activate the harpoons by restarting the generators inside the facility, then they have to run to the pads as fast as they can and coordinate an attack.

Xenomorphs (Alien Queen)

Story for the monster:
Many of you know what Xenomorphs are like, but in case you didn't know they are a vicious alien species featured in the Alien movies as well as the Alien vs Predator ones. The explanation of this creature appearing in Evolve could be something as simple as to say that a human colony ship was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case a player will play as an Alien queen that is pregnant and stuck in the middle of the map, sending its children to protect her.

The Monster:
On this case the player would be able to use different types of Xenomorphs, each with their own attacks. In the beginning, the alien queen will just be able to use the common Xenomorph that everybody knows, but as it "evolves" it will be able to use stronger types that will make things more difficult for the hunters. In case her minions fail to stop the hunters and they get too near, she would have her own attacks that she can use to defend herself until the hunters get far enough for minions to be effective again. Her minions can also damage the self destruct mechanisms by throwing acid at them and that would force hunters to fix them, giving the queen a break to pick them off. The cool thing with the alien queen is that the player will be able to have up to 3 minions roaming the place at the same time and would be able to switch them at will. When a minion is not been used it would have a normal A.I that will keep them roaming the place, but will be completely open to attacks.

Notable abilities:
Send up to 3 minions to do her bidding, her own attacks are quite strong

Monster cons:
Not been able to find and stalk the hunters in time could make it very easy for them.

The Map:
A human space colony that is now a wreck as the Xenomorphs have claimed it. It would have several corridors and rooms including air ducts and sewage disposal tunnels. The Alien queen would be right at the middle of the map and from that point it would be able to send her minions to protect her. The map would have 3 places where the colony's self destruct mechanism can be activated as well as places where hatches can be opened, sending any unlucky fellow (hunter or creature) to the vacuum of space. These hatches can be activated by either human or creature.

Hunter Strategy:
The main objective is to destroy the alien queen and this can be done in one of two ways. The hunters can tackle the queen head on in quick attack patterns until it is destroyed or try to activate the self destruct sequence and get out of there as quick as they can. It is a test of speed and consistency because the team would have to be very fast and precise on what they are doing or else the queen will get the upper hand and overwhelm them.

These are the 3 creatures folks, but if you have any other ideas you can share them on the comments section below as imagining stuff about a game is always fun. If Evolve manages to give us lots of creatures and also lots of hunters, it will be an epic experience.

The Evil Within - How Mikami Got it Right

Some time ago when Resident Evil's original creator, Shinji Mikami said he was going to take survival horror back to its roots we were hopeful, but kind of felt like "whoa it will be a lot of time until that happens". Well, that "far away" day finally arrived and it turned out really well. The Evil Within has a perfect mix of different game play mechanics and details that make the game to be the return of the old school survival horror we had been waiting for.

First of all, be aware that if there ever were a golden rule for survival horror games that rule would be:

A survival horror game must never be perfect. 

This is because if a game claims to be a survival horror title it must have its share of intentional "defects" so it gives the correct atmosphere or else it will feel too clean and sanitized. The Evil Within has a lot of those "defects" as effects like a grainy image, awkward camera angles, controls that seem to break at some times and even non nonsensical happenings that seem to be glitches at first just to realize a few moments later that it was part of the scene itself. These are the kind of game play elements that made legendary horror games like the old school Resident Evil games or the Silent Hill series and fortunately for us, The Evil Within follows this to the letter.

Will that lump in the end stand up or not? That is the question...

Another aspect in which the vision behind the game was right on the money is the fact that it mixes various type of situations into a horror environment that feels solid. You can find yourself ambushed, racing against the clock, running from an enemy who can kill you with just one hit or just find the occasional enemy while exploring the place, avoiding traps and solving puzzles. You see, this is the kind of environment that comes from the result of good game design. Instead of coming up with a bland "shoot your way through" approach, the people behind this game gave us a game world that is balanced between linearity and dynamic game play. Yes, the game moves through the story line in linear fashion, but the way to survival is entirely up to you by choosing how to explore, engage the enemy and develop your character.

This picture makes it look complex, but it is not.

Speaking of character development, this gaming element as used in survival horror games has become a modern trend that has enhanced the overall experience and The Evil Within implements this very well. As a hardcore survival horror fan you may be thinking that strengthening your character will make the game easy and dull, but that is not the case if such system is made in a balanced way. For example, in this game you can make your character to be stronger in some aspects, but the points required to do it are scarce, so you will never be able to create an invincible warrior. Instead, you will have to carefully upgrade the things you use the most in order to create your own style of playing, like upgrading weapons if you want to use more firepower or enhancing your abilities and item stock if you feel like clever and risky tactics are your thing.

The past design look a little more chaotic, but it felt a lot more real.

The only element in this game that may leave some hardcore horror fans wishing it were different is the game flow. The Evil Within flows in chapters like many other modern horror games and this may be seen as an artificial approach to the exploration aspect of the game. Sure, the chapters are long and the maps are diverse and well designed, but some of us may still be missing the backtracking that characterized the survival horror games of old. An example of this been Mikami's own creation, the old Resident Evil series. Anybody who played those games can remember how one could basically go from the last parts of the game all the way to be beginning without any intermissions or at least been able to roam around the whole place before some turn of events made the place to be destroyed or forced you to escape. The lack of this whole backtracking element is not a deal breaker here, but it poses as a nice thing to have in Mikami's next game.

Puzzles are pretty straight forward in this game, but some are just awesome.

Wrapping it up:
In summary, The Evil Within mixes the best of the old and new to create an excellent survival horror game that lives up to the hype and to all the faith that survival horror fans have on Resident Evil's original creator. The team behind the game did a hell of a job and judging by the nice reception that the game had with the gaming community, it is to be expected to see a lot more from what that came from. If you are a survival horror fan this is a must buy and even if you are not, just give it a chance, you will not be dissapointed.

The West Fall From Grace With Japanese Imports

At some point in the past, we at the west were having a blast with Japanese imports. Most games had their version for the west be it with subs, dubs or even the all powerful multi-language feature that has become basically extinct in these days and the only games that were kept in Japan where the ones that were extremely strange in nature and had no market over here. It was an era where censors and marketing people were a little looser they are now. At the time, the market was more open in terms of risk taking and companies were all into been the most "bad-ass" rather than the extra profits and austerity that they show at our present time. At that point in gaming history we used to be showered with cool Japanese games that complemented our own locally made games.

So...What Happened?
Well, if you grew up with the previous scenario you may have noticed that we have become kind of secluded in terms of imported video games. Yeah, we have a local video game market that is quite strong, but that doesn't mean that we are not going to support games from the other side of the world. On this day and age, any Japanese publisher thinks about it like 1,000.000.000 times before making a simple localization that on the past would had been a no brainer. Just to give you an example, approximately 10 years ago, we got 3 Fatal Frame games, while today as of October 2014, people at Koei Tecmo said that they think that the new Fatal Frame game (Wii U) will be a Japan only release. All of this while survival horror is making a big comeback into the west market which makes this all to be painfully ironic.

If we talk about Japanese franchises that vanished from the west, Yakuza is a big one.

The problem with all this situation is that we are been starved of a lot of awesome games and nice things because of some really dumb misconceptions like:

1) Japanese games wont sell well in the west.
Answer to that: Nonsense! Just because one game of the series flopped in the past (for a plethora of other reasons) it doesn't mean that all of them will do so too. Most of the time some imports fail in the west because of bad marketing and the lack of advertising efforts. That notion that the west generally see Japanese games as weird is a dumb generalization that must stop. The really weird aspect of this misconception is that some Japanese games have a great chance of success because they resemble games that are popular on our side of the planet, but many publishers still refuse to localize them.

2) Japanese cultural references will not fit with the west.
Answer to that: Are you kidding me? I think that Japanese marketers need to take a look on how popular anime has become in the west, especially within North American and Latin American Audiences. Many series are huge in the west and many aspects of the Japanese/Korean cultures are revered on this side of the world, not only as video games, but television series, music and movies. You don't need to "predict" how are we going to react. If the game is fun or at least interesting then we will be able to handle it.

3) Their business models don't fit with the west.
Answer to that: This one looks as if it is enough reason to keep a game out of our turf, but if you see it from a deeper point of view you will notice that the whole gaming market presents different types of opportunities that are not limited to one type of consumer. There are several business practices available including platform exclusivity, extra deals favorable to the players or even the creation of extra content and/or game elements. It is understandable that their business model may differ with the popular ones on our side, but they can re-shape their current ones into something that can help them profit from releasing the game overseas instead of succumbing to their lack of faith in the occidental gamer.

So you want to play PS VITA games on your TV set? Nope, only in Japan.

O.k, but who's to blame then?
If we are going to point fingers the first ones to blame would be Japanese publishers themselves. In the last 10 years, many Japanese gaming companies began to radically change their games instead of evolving them into modern versions of their winning formula. This gave the false impression that we were just not interested in Japanese games anymore while the truth was that those erratic experiments they made were the ones that pushed the fans off some franchises that used to be quite popular. All of this just because they wanted their games to have an American feeling which is a complete betrayal of their original style and the wrong thing to do, as imitation meets failure more often that you may think.

Other ones that are to blame are the marketing people for these Japanese companies that have the mistaken notion that the west hate their games and the third and final piece of the blame game belongs to us, the western gamers. Why? because when one of the few Japanese imports actually reaches our shores, we cheer and all but still ignore it or just wait too much time to get it. Its like we like the game, but don't want to put our money where our mouths are and then we complain when they don't want to release games over here anymore.

This is one of the currently missing imports that saddens me the most.

Wrapping it up
We can once again be what we used to be for Japanese developers, but in order for that to happen we have to show our love for the games, rather than just speak about it and moan when the games fail to be released. It sounds harsh, but it is the truth because many of us old school gamers and Japanese game fans have become too complacent and haven't realized that we are not in the 90's anymore and that in the world we live in today, if there is no solid demand for a product, it wont happen. So we need to sober up from all the good times reminiscing and keep up with what is happening today if we want some good imports to come our way.

Final Fantasy XV Has The Old School Vibe Going

Since the new Final Fantasy XV trailer was released, there have been mixed reactions especially coming from long time fans. Some of these fans (myself included) go for an optimistic approach, looking forward to this game bringing back the lost feeling that Final Fantasy games used to have for us while on the other hand there are those who state that the game looks like it will be something too far off what a Final Fantasy game is supposed to be. When Final Fantasy XIII was released it was not a bad game, but we quickly spotted how different it was from the original Final Fantasy style and far off from turn based combat or leveling systems the real difference was in the game's atmosphere itself. Today we are going to see why Final Fantasy XV looks like it will give the late 90's early 00's fans some loving in its own way.

Combining both the 2013 trailer and the recent one, we can begin to see some of the old school vibe piling up with this game. We have to take into account that Square Enix has been little by little giving us classic Final Fantasy material since they released Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn and the trend isn't showing any signs of stopping. Based on this fact let's see some aspects that support this point of view.

• Many fans are complaining about the game world looking "too modern" for a Final Fantasy game, but if you take a moment to remember some places in Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, IX, X and XII, it basically looks the same with a modern setting that features an architectonic style that crosses between modern and medieval with places taking shapes that range from cathedrals and temples to contemporary buildings you could see in any city on the world. The same thing happens with the strange characters with heavy pieces of armor that appear on the 2013 trailer. They look like knights and not robots as the "ultra-modern" approach may suggest.

• There is a nice and interesting contrast in clothing between several characters. Some of them are wearing ceremonial robes while others go for the modern style. This is very noticeable in the 2013 trailer where a faction of "priests" are confronted by a group of agents wearing modern business suits who kind of look like the Turks in Final Fantasy VII. It is also worth noting with the characters that appear on the recent trailer as they are all dressed in modern attires except the main character who has the over the top clothing that is classic on any Final Fantasy main character. The clothing in this game seems similar to the fans but fresh at the same time which is a good thing.

• Another aspect that shows that the game hasn't gone all the way into a modern environment are the weapons we see on both trailers. We have the classic big sword, smaller blades, fist weapons with the occasional use of guns. In fact the big sword that the main character uses looks like a cross between Cloud's buster sword and Squall's gun blade, so this character was most probably made with those two guys in mind so there's some nostalgia points right there.

• Giant creatures in both trailers gives the same vibe that we had on Final Fantasy IX when the summons took the center stage in the game. After that entry in the series, summons began to get smaller, but with XV it seems like  the giant being approach is back in style so who knows what we will see when the game is finally released. This time even normal fauna and flora in the game can look huge depending on the place you are in.

• The use of the car is something that has been talked about in both negative and positive ways. The curious aspect of this feature in the game is that if you look at it from a practical perspective it is the same as using a car on Final Fantasy VIII, only that this time you will really drive it around while in the classic game it was just used to move around the world map. This means that the open world structure that the new game will have is kind of a modern version of the giant world maps we used to have on classic Final Fantasy games.

• The Final Fantasy arpeggio at the end of the trailer says a lot to the fans. It is sort of a reassurance that all the classic nooks and crannies of the old games will make a comeback on this one. It shouldn't surprise you if the final game includes the classic fan fare (which was absent in XIII) and even some of the menu sounds effects that accompanied the classic games.

• This may not be something that is cast in stone, but the purpose the characters show in the second trailer, and the impression that is going to be a long trip in order to do what they plan to do is quite similar to the pilgrimage that Yuna takes in Final Fantasy X. The only difference between the two journeys is that on FFX it was a linear path, while in XV it will be an open world approach which will give players the freedom to explore the world at their own pace. 

Wrapping it up

The long awaited Final Fantasy game is the best bet we have at having a current generation Final Fantasy game that still caters to the fans of the series. The game is not the classic style turn based Final Fantasy game that some fans want, but if we open our minds a little and embrace some of the modern aspects that this game will feature there is a great chance that we will enjoy this game as much as we did with the classics and later on with Crisis Core. Let's just hope that the final product lives to our expectations and it becomes the success that Square Enix needs in order to feel confident enough to keep up with the jrpg effort.

Bonus Stage

In case you haven't seen the trailers, here you have both of them so you can get a sense of how the game will be.

E3 2013 Trailer

2014 TGS Trailer

A Couple Reasons Why Destiny Suceeds Amid All The Chaos

September 9th was the day when Destiny launched worldwide and up until now we have been reading and hearing the same thing: bland story, repetitive enemies, repeating missions,etc. At first it seemed as if that backlash would hurt the game, but now after the dust starts to clear, the game still stands on its own as a great experience regardless of lukewarm reviews and heavy criticism. The reason why a game like Destiny is still strong even after the bad press it had on launch is that most of the bad mouthing is thrown in the wrong direction and for the wrong reasons. This gives the backlash a lesser importance so little by little players are just enjoying the game regardless of what they read or heard. Wanna know the reasons why most of the backlash is bogus? Let's mention a few.

Gotta love the environments, they really outdid themselves making those.

The game is not your typical first person shooter.
The first thing that detractors need to know that Destiny is not your average shooter. If you expected to simply choose a stage (or play a linear campaign), run and shoot your way through this isn't your game. Destiny is all about exploration and absorbing the world in which you are playing which is a very fun thing, especially if you explore it with some friends. The planets are huge, you have lots of treasures to find (most hidden in really clever places) you have quests to do and story missions to accomplish, not to mention the random events. This means that this is a game that requires a little more of your patience so if you don't have that, its o.k to pass, but not to say the game is bad because of it.

There are lots of skills between the two job classes featured per each type of character.

The game is not fully a full RPG.
Destiny is one of those games that have pretty neat RPG elements like character progression (by leveling, equipment and skills) including the use of stats, looting, battle rolls (as in damage/defense calculation), element based weapons and so on, but it is not a full fledged RPG. Many people were expecting to walk in the middle of Mars and find a caravan with an old man that tells them a story over a campfire and hot dogs sending them to a cave where they find some plot twist in the end of it or something and that is yet another wrong expectation. Destiny is not Final Fantasy or The Elder Scrolls, it is an online FPS with strong RPG elements and growth based game play. If we really have to compare it to some other game, let's mention other growth/action based ones like Phantasy Star Online or any action rpg game with similar characteristics. You will have a story, but don't really expect something like the ones you would find on an single player RPG, because that is not the main emphasis in this game, see it for what it is.

These guys look big, but their size makes them easy targets.

Many other famous online games have repetitive content.
The "repetitive enemies/quests" outcry is something that is a little hard to understand if you have been playing online games (especially RPG) since long ago. This is something that happens all the time, yet now many people seem to be blaming this game for something that has been there since the very beginning. If something can't be stressed enough is that Destiny is a growth based game. The hook it has is to make you fight enemies/players and get treasures so you can enhance your character and become better. This has been successful so many times, yet people chose to complain about it now. What makes this so curious is that most people had a chance to test the game before it launched so even when they knew what the game was about, they decided to nitpick on a characteristic that almost all online games have.

Epic moments are common when you play with your friends.

Detractors are not trying the game as they should.
This one is a mix of the previous reasons and then some more. If you got the game, you should try it with the right mindset, not only because of the previously mentioned reasons, but because you can't judge a game just by looking at it from only one angle. If you are a game reviewer, you have to loosen up a little and throw your gaming bias through the window. If you are not, then just try everything that the game has to offer before passing judgement. Pass some missions, explore the various planets with some friends, team up for difficult parts, go into exploring trips in order to find the golden chests (don't cheat by looking for their location on the net) and also while you're at it, give the crucible (player vs player) a chance. If you still don't like it its totally o.k, but it doesn't mean that it is a bad game.

I know this is just a concept art, but... Giant frogs with medieval style goblins and druids? Yes please!

Wrapping it up

To get everything into perspective. The game is a mix between a first person shooter and an online rpg and it shouldn't be looked upon like it is supposed to be the holy grail of any of the two genres, because no hybrid is ever perfect. This time around we have to look at it like we should look at life itself, enjoying the small things, having fun and transcending the so called standards for a change. I am NOT implying that we should ignore the game's faults because the game does have some things that still need some work, but that doesn't mean that should count this one out.

To tell you the truth, this game seems to be running on some interesting loop within the gaming community. First the player has a bad impression about it, but out of curiosity they try it anyway. After that, most of them get hooked  or at least go into the "the game is not perfect, but it is fun" sort of thinking. This is something that has been happening over and over again since the game launched and that alone proves the point of this article really well. So bottom line, the game is doing well, Bungie is working hard on new stuff to keep us busy with it so things went on to a bumpy, but good start. Just try it and you will see.

A Videogame Generation Without Consoles, A Curious but Unlikely Scenario.

Videogame generations have always been characterized by the existence of game consoles. The PC has always been there as a gaming platform, but what really brought the games closer to the common household were and still are stand alone gaming machines. Nowadays, some analysts have predicted that consoles will cease to exist very soon, some of them stating that the current home console generation will most likely be the last. Arguments supporting their point of view include the advent of mobile gaming and increasing production costs in a fragile economy. Most gamers just take those analysis as doom and gloom nonsense, but let's make a small analysis of our own and see what would it take for a console-less generation to happen and see how feasible or unfeasible it really is.

There are lots of gaming companies, but the focus is on the big 3 of the console market.

A Matter of Competition.

First of all, for a console-less generation to sucessfully happen companies will need to beef up competition to very intense levels because they would no longer have any hardware to support them. One way to do this is to increase the rate of platform exclusive games up to a point in which we receive no less than 5-8 exclusives per year. If this is not done, then we will have different first party cloud based game services featuring the same games. Another option they have is to get creative and give their cloud platform an edge by giving the players some out of the ordinary incentives to play their games. One example of this would be to feature special points with each unlocked achievement or trophy and let the player use those points to buy more games. Another good idea would be to have monthly competitions with real prizes, encouraging games to play on their platform, polish their skills and compete, be it directly (fighting games, first person shooters) or indirectly (game records, score, speed runs, etc). 

These are just two ideas that could make an interesting first party cloud gaming market and while it sounds like tons of fun for us as consumers, it is a nightmare for gaming companies if we see it from a financial point of view. In reality, exclusive game development is getting slower while multi-platforms are thriving and getting faster. On the other hand giving real and direct incentives to the players is something that is almost non-existent as companies are looking to spend less and earn more in a market that is not custom tailored for us players anymore. 

A pro-player environment is something they have been running from for a long time.

Features We Love, But Nightmares They Fear. 

Let's imagine for a while that consoles have already vanished and that every first party company has its own cloud gaming service. Would they implement pro-player features that would make their networks a lot friendlier or will they go the dictator's path and keep player convenience out of the loop? If everything is cloud based we as players will need things like an offline mode, game sharing, game trading and lending between users, remote play, etc. Some of these features are to be implemented in consoles (with offline play currently existing on Steam) but if we were talking about a completely cloud based environment then companies would get nervous about what freedoms they give us. Will they go ahead and implement compulsory DRM even though everybody hates it? Will they fear people tricking the system so much that they will force countless limitations on us? Even if they go the opposite way and give us a gaming paradise, will the publishers be o.k with this?

If these feared features are something that has been very controversial on consoles, imagine how would it be if everything were to be cloud based. The probabilities of a giant backlash/fiasco are enormous, especially if you take into account what happened to Microsoft at the beginning of the current generation. Remember this?  

Console-less Markets And Their Customer Friendly Ways

This one is all about game prices. Console-less markets like Steam, Origin, Humble Bundle thrive of the idea of low prices or even give whatever you want type of systems. On some occasions we see new games getting price cuts that would seem barbaric for the console market investors. Steam is a great example of this as on Valve's little gold mine, sometimes we can find gaming deals on big name games that are quite recent, especially on seasonal sales. This is because on a console-less market, the price of games is a little more tied to demand than on the traditional game selling environment. 

Many publishers would cringe on the idea of everybody getting their game for cheap so it is either this or (once again) give the players a strong incentive to buy your game at full price (something that doesn't involve X set of armor, a "special" vehicle or an extra weapon). They need to make people really want the game quick or else they will wait for a price drop and that would hurt their profits more than the Red Wedding (spoiler alert!) episode did to Game of Thrones viewers. 

Wrapping it up:

A console-less generation of games can happen and that is a truth that can't be denied, but just because something can be done it doesn't mean that it is a good idea for everybody. From the point of view of us the consumers, it can be quite nice and convenient, but from a business stand point it is a quite difficult task to do. Gamers are getting smarter in deciding how will they spend their money, so one little mistake can spell disaster and first party companies/publishers know this very well. So, to wrap things up let's say that a console-less gaming generation is NOT feasible unless we (the players) are the ones who dominate the market. If the men in business suits are good with that, then we could be having this as soon as the next generation comes, but if not, then we are not ready for this and will have to wait at least another 20 years to get it.