5 franchises Sega should revive

If gaming were our planet then Sega would be my home nation. Since very little I became a fan of the company that brought us Sonic the Hedgehog and haven't stopped been one ever since. So been things as they are today you must imagine how excited I am about Sega's mysterious "new identity" and the barrage of good games that they have either released or announced in the last months. Seen how part of that "new identity" is to revive some of their old franchises, today we will see 5 of them that Sega could and should put into their revival machine soon.

1) Astal 

Why: Gorgeous side scrolling platformers to the likes of Astal have been successful ever since the indie scene brought us Braid.

How: Best bet is digital only on all platforms.

Astal was one of those games back then that showed us how powerful the Sega Saturn was when handling 2D graphics. It was fun, beautiful and had a cool story and soundtrack. It featured a lot of surreal stages that kept us on our toes with all types of side scrolling challenges while the story unfolded and at the same time having bosses were also well designed, ranging from simple to gigantic. The game also featured anime videos on it and nicely narrated/spoken cutscenes. It was a complete game that is a great memory for any Sega fan out there and a good opportunity for bringing some of the younger gamers in.

2) Burning Rangers

Why: It had a good and original action-adventure style of game play coupled with an anime direction that rivals any popular series out there.

How: This can go anyway from physical to digital since Sega seems to consider it one of its classics. Maybe they could release an anime series first and see how it goes.

Burning Rangers was a game that was seen as strange at the time. You controlled one of two futuristic fire fighters in a story where fire and conspiracy were your enemies. The stages were interesting to explore, each having their own story with a good amount of action and puzzle elements that made the game really fun while the story unfolded in beautiful anime cutscenes. This would be one of those games that nowadays would spark the curiosity of gamers and otakus alike, both old and new.

3) Shinning Force

Why: The series has been dormant ever since the Shinning Force 3 trilogy was released and deserves a new one following the classic format, but modernized for a new generation of gamers as there is little that can go wrong with a tactic rpg of that magnitude.

How: Maybe release a bundle having the three scenarios of Shinning Force 3 (because scenarios 2 and 3 were never released in the west) to test things out,  then if successful they can finally make Shinning Force 4.

Shinning Force is one of the top tactic rpg franchises of all time and it was really cut short when the Saturn faded away (Shinning Force 3 been one of the last games in the console). The best way I can describe this series is epic, with awesome tactical battles, great stories about conquest, mysticism and conspiracy and great heroes to use in each battle. In order to clean up the mess that happened with the latest Valkyria Chronicles game, Shinning Force makes a good candidate for Sega's redemption on this genre.

4) Blue Stinger

Why: It was a good survival horror that felt different and mixed characteristics of many genres into one. It had the vibe that Deadly Premonition has and that one has a cult following, so... Why not?

How: Somehow get the rights to do it and make it a reality, full release.

Blue Stinger was one of the games that was released close to the console's 9/9/99 launch date. It was one of those titles that was advertised as survival horror, but in the long run felt like a lot more. The exploration was spot on with lots of places to gun and run through, each with their own puzzles and sticky situations all with the kind of atmosphere that while it looked a little too colorful for a survival horror game, was really interesting because it kept the intrigue going. I know that if anybody plays this now they will see the game as dated and buggy, but picture how a well designed adventure like this would be with updated visuals, controls and overall gameplay while keeping the original vision intact. The game's creator may not be with us anymore, but I am sure somebody could carry out his vision and make that sequel that was cancelled when he passed.

5) Skies of Arcadia

Why: Its one of the best rpgs of the whole Dreamcast/PS2 era.

How: Full release in both physical and digital as the colorfulness and vibe of the game would speak for itself for both fans and newcomers alike.

When this was released on Dreamcast back in October 5, 2000, it was like a dream come true. We had played JRPGs before on Dreamcast at the time, but at the moment we only had Grandia 2 (released August 2000) as the AAA Japanese RPG of choice on Sega's young console. So where Grandia 2 excelled with its gritty end of the world-ish story and game world, Skies of Arcadia did on a more lighthearted environment that was closer to what we could find on a Final Fantasy game. It not only had a turn based battle system that felt different, but it also had awesome airship battles and lots of places to find and explore, all wrapped up in a really cool story about pirates and nations in the sky (floating islands).

Wrapping things up
Sega has been doing the right thing since very early this year and as the trend continues they should give some attention to the previously mentioned franchises as they would most likely make it all even better.

E3 2017: Keys to Victory

In pay per view boxing matches, there is something called "keys to victory" which is a small pre-fight analysis of what each boxer needs to do in order to maximize his chances of winning. Today we are going to once again use that format to do a little analysis and see what each company needs to do in order to get that "winner of E3" title.

Why is winning E3 a big deal? Well, when a company "wins" an E3 event the grand prize is lots of hype and most often than not hype traduces itself into sales and sales very often turn into good games been considered for the platform in the near future. So without any further delay, lets see what each company needs to do in order to win it.

Microsoft

Up until now, Microsoft has had a really tough first half of the year. Looking on the bright side, the Xbox One has been getting good initiatives like the Netflix-like gaming service, but without many games to keep its user base engaged it has remained quite cold in the house of Xbox. In order to win this year's E3 their strategy has to be to push the Scorpio along with a barrage of exclusive games. Seen a revival of Scalebound as a Scorpio exclusive will sting a little (if you own an Xbox One), but would be a valid strategy. Other big games that could be revived are Fable and even KOTOR (Star Wars: Knights of the old republic). Once again the key for them is variety as the Gears-Forza-Halo combo will not be able to carry their new system to where they want it to be. They need to re-shape their fan base into something that welcomes more types of games and this E3 event is a great chance for them to do so.

Strength: Having a new machine to show gives them an edge if they know how to use it.

Weakness: Consumer confidence is quite low considering the poor first half of the year that the Xbox One had.

Sony

Sony is in a complex situation. They had a wonderful first half of 2017 with a parade of great third party games, but with few announcements and rumors in the last 5 months and with Final Fantasy 7 remake and Kingdom Hearts having difficulties it looks as if they have spent most of their bullets and are now facing a drought. With their situation been like it is... Can they win it this year? The answer to that question is yes, but they need to prove that the drought is not coming and that we have something to look forward to in the next 5 months. We all know that new gameplay will be shown of some games that were already announced, but if we don't get some cool surprises along with some solid release dates, we might have a so-so conference at best. The pressure is on them to keep the ball rolling.

Strength: Great first half of 2017 has the consumer as happy as they can be. The overall attitude is positive and many expect Sony to have an ace under their sleeve as they have done for the last 3 years.

Weakness: Expectations are so high that Sony will have a hard time topping themselves and anything less than what's expected could be seen as dim and uneventful. 

Nintendo

Right now, Nintendo is having a great time. Their gamble with the Switch paid off and they are as we speak a very close second to the PS4, month after month since the Switch was released. Now, the problem for them with this years E3 is that most of their surprises have once again (like last year) been either leaked or announced on ahead of time, leaving them with little mystery and intrigue, things that are needed in this type of event in order to have a big impact on the audience. 

Another fact is that even with the success they are having, they still won't give a big conference and once again rely on their Nintendo Direct videos, which are cool, but don't have that extra "umph!" that big time conferences give. So if things are like this then what does Nintendo need to win? The best bet they have is having secret stuff that they can use to blow us away when they are finally mentioned or showing what they have in a brilliant way, so they can lure us into the hype train. How can they do this? Well, details about the Splatoon 2 and Arms tournament can be a good start along with details about their Netflix-like retro game service and maybe one or two new Switch games that haven't been announced.

Strength: Great momentum since the Switch was released, even bigger that the one they had with the Wii in 2006.

Weakness: Unless they have some good secrets to unveil, everything new about the big N is already known.

Wrapping things up:

E3 Fight Forecast

This years E3 will be a good one with solid game play and maybe a few surprises in a really close fight between the main competitors, but try not to expect a "dreams come true" hype fest like the last one, because it is very unlikely. Let's just enjoy what we will get and get excited about the things that will be announced while hoping that the momentum that 2017 brought can last for a long time. 

The survival horror ambiguous storyline theory

In the last couple years we've got a lot of good survival horror games. Titles like Outlast 1 and 2, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation, RE7 and many others. Most of them gave us good hours of enjoyment, but some people (myself included) expected this to be the big revival of the survival horror genre and in the end of this nice line of releases, we ended up feeling like it was good, maybe great, but not epic or unforgettable. I was kind of at a loss, trying to find a reason about why this wave of survival horror goodness didn't felt perfect until a survival horror themed conversation happened with one of my friends.

On our little chat, we were talking about some famous survival horror games like the old Resident Evil games and we were wondering what happened. Lots of nostalgic moments and memories came from that, but there was this part of the whole argument that really got me thinking.

The first time we got here, is still one of the most epic gaming moments for many of us.

My friend stated that the best thing that the old Resident Evil games had was the atmosphere of not knowing anything about it. Now let's make a thought exercise and follow the Resident Evil example:

You arrive at a mansion, trying to rescue a military squad that was missing in action, then you get inside to this nice looking place only to find that is crawling with all kinds of creatures that shouldn't even exist. The first time everybody played this we felt the intrigue, violently building up from the moment we found the first zombie and see that low resolution video of it munching on a dead soldier's body. Now this is what was going through my mind at that point:

Old Mansion + Lots of doors + Zombies... I think that I'm going to spend a lot of time figuring this out, but I will do it because it intrigues me and I want to know more.

The feeling was special to say the least. At the time it felt huge (like taking a cross-country trip without knowing where you will end up) and it took a lot of exploration, discovering new places, reading documents, solving puzzles, surviving and watching cutscenes in order to finally get to that underground laboratory for the first time and go like "What? A lab in this place?". That was the moment when the game's story was at its peak and that precise point was what made it all so worthwhile.

Some consider this one the best in the series, I personally see it tied with Code Veronica.

Resident Evil 2 gave us another dose of that feeling, but on a bigger scale. Now the whole city was infected and I was playing as a rookie cop/rebellious biker girl that had no clue of what was going on. By then we all knew that the creatures existed and we knew that they were man made, but at the same time we had lots of questions like how the virus got to the city and what kinds of creatures it could had spawned there. Our answer came as we began exploring the police station and progressed from there, finding creatures such as the lickers and the giant croc that wanted to have us as as a tasty snack.

From there on, we kept discovering things and the more we knew, the more we wanted to know. At that time, we had already mastered the now criticized tank controls, weird aiming mechanics and cheesy voice acting because we had to know where it would all lead up to. It was like starting to read a good book at 8:00 pm only to be hooked by it and keep going through the night even though you know that you have to work/go to school on the next day. It was that powerful.

I could go on and on about every Resident Evil game, but let's get to the point. The charm of these early manifestations of the survival horror genre (something that was also used by other games like Silent Hill) was that a great deal of the main problem in the storyline was hidden to us, even when we knew who our enemies were. It was this feeling of mystery and hopelessness mixed with stress and been lost in a place you don't know anything about, the thing that made the old school survival horror experience to be so special and that is the aspect that was missing from the cool, but not epic  horror games that we got at the beginning of this generation. They had the atmosphere and game mechanics right, but they lacked the WTH is going on factor because even when they tried to hide it (like they did on The Evil Within) we had this sort a of faint foresight about what was going on that didn't let us use our imaginations at full power.

Another one of my favorites, underrated Saturn game that followed the formula you will soon read about.

So this the point when all our thoughts were gathered and we came up with the survival horror ambiguous storyline theory. This theory states, that for a game to be a true heir of the survival horror roots it needs to have a story that leave us lost and wondering up until it peaks, a continuous affair with no divisions like chapters or places you can't go back to and having the sense of discovering things by our own rather than holding our hands and/or structuring the game into established objectives. Anything less of this makes the game to be an action game with horror elements and anything more than this is to be considered experimental (like some horror indie games).

This was the reason why the newest games are not clicking with some of us us in the same way that the old ones did. They gave us unnecessary foresight on what was happening, were structured in chapters and objectives leaving little to no space for backtracking and while they were fun, they weren't the survival horror revolution we were hoping for. If we were to compare these games with a cake, we can say that instead of been a chocolate cake, it was a vanilla one coated with chocolate frosting, which tasted good, but was not as satisfying.

I found this as an adult and the tension and scare factor it brought was amazing considering this is a SNES game.

Now that you know about it, what do you think? Is our little theory right on the spot or are we missing something? Let's talk about this on the comments below and btw, thanks for reading.

The Surge: A good old school game in a modern package

It is an awkward but awesome experience when you load a 2017 game and it ends up feeling like you are back in the old days, yeah...It happened to me and it was wonderful. Of course, before I begin let me get something really clear. This game is in no way dated or anything like that. It is just has a couple of design choices that make it an hybrid in terms of old school and current trends and that game is called The Surge.

In order to pay homage to the times this game takes me back to, I am going to do this review in a Game Pro style, so let's begin.

The Surge
Developed by: Deck13 Interactive
Published by: Focus Home Interactive
Released on: May 16, 2017

Graphics (4.5/5)
The graphics on The Surge are nothing to flip about, but at the same time they are good enough to give us this industrious feeling that will be the first thing that will remind a lot of gamers about some games of the past. Think about places like the facility in Dino Crisis, the Heimdal in Carrier, the island city in Blue Stinger and even some awesome wastelands in Half Life 2. Another nice thing is that the indoor places look spooky enough for this game to be as scary as a survival horror at some places.

Sounds (4/5)
The music and sound effects are decent and do their job (the country music that is heard on safe zones (med day) is so good that it has gotten stuck in my head and I don't even like country music. What the game needed to be perfect in terms of sound is some more dramatic music to enhance the mood and keep us in our toes.

Before going to the next category I will share the med bay song with you all.

Gameplay (3/5)
Game play in The Surge will be familiar to anybody who has played Dark Souls or any similar game. You have to go through various zones, finding safe places and defeating tough enemies to advance while getting stronger yourself. It also borrows the npc side-quest thing where you get npcs to join you in your safe zone with some of them having things for you to do. Now, what differentiates this game from Dark Souls and what makes it so old school oriented is that maps are a lot deeper, so just hacking and slashing won't take you anywhere if you don't know where you are going and since this game has 0% hand holding this means that you really have to think things through before advancing. The only reason why it gets a (3) as its score on gameplay is because it doesn't have an online component or a character creation option, both been things that are always fun in these types of games.

Fun Factor (4/5)
The Surge is a really fun game with all its complex exploration and places to find, but I have to admit that while I am delighted with how old school it is, some people may not agree with me since it lacks some of the elements that many see as a given in any game that is similar to Dark Souls. Not counting the side quests you can screw up in one playthrough, replay value doesn't seem to be much considering that no online component means no pvp, which is something that really extends the life of any Souls/Borne game.

Challenge (5/5)

With no hand holding at all, the challenge in this game is spot on without been too frustrating for anyone. It is not that hard when fighting after you get used to the enemy patterns, but it still keeps you in your toes, because sometimes a simple mistake can be fatal. Another challenging aspect is that the maps in the game are not linear at all and it takes a lot of planning and experimenting with your surroundings before you can confidently explore a place without been paranoid about enemies and traps waiting for you on every corner.

Final Score (4/5)
The Surge is not a perfect game, but it is one of those imperfect experiences that are fun enough for us to look past its rough edges and enjoy it like we do any of the popular games out there. If you consider yourself to be a hardcore and/or old school oriented gamer then this is a must buy, if not then research a little before deciding on it.

(+) Great atmosphere, really good on exploration
(+) Nice challenge and rpg elements
(-) Lacks an online component and create a character option.

What do "old schoolers" really want of modern gaming?

Some people (especially newer generations) see the old school gamer as a group of grouchy old dudes (or dudettes) who live with nostalgia glasses permanently attached to their eyes. Because of this misconception and after studying how some classic games resonate with gamers more than their modern counterparts, I have decided to post my findings on this case. Get prepared to know what an old school gamer really thinks and what we really want in modern gaming.

This simple and small Chrono Cross town has more substance that many big "open world" worlds.

1) Complex simplicity:

Take the term "complex simplicity" as the base for all the future items on this list. We know that most people think that classic games (90's until mid 00's) are all about complexity with their sophisticated systems and the lack of visual ques, but it is quite the opposite. The truth is that classic games were a lot simpler where it mattered. While games in previous eras had things that made them look complex, in reality they were really relaxing and could be played with an easy going attitude without feeling that the developers are taking you by the hand or pulling your arm through the whole game.

For example, many classic games were very linear, but somehow they were designed to feel like anything but linear. I have been playing some classics like Chrono Cross, Dark Cloud, Blood Omen, Legacy of Kain, Terranigma among some others and while I know for a fact that they are linear games, they feel as deep as any multi-million open world modern production. This happens because old games presented more content with less levels of stress. So instead of raining dull chores on us, we moved through the story in a relaxed way and we welcomed any change of pace that was interesting enough without implying that we had to completely go out of our way or make some change that would completely take us out of the mood we had until that moment. Of course, this is not the only aspect of simplicity that applies in this situation as there are others like...

The Yakuza series is an example where less realism = tons of fun.

2) Less realism, more suspension of disbelief:

I am not stating that the next Call of Duty game needs to have magic on it or anything like that. What I mean with less realism applies to games where suspension of disbelief is more important than making the game similar to the real world in terms of the overall fun factor of the game. For example, weapons that break too quickly, unnecessary hunger and thirst mechanics (unless the game's focus is survival), forcing the player to wait or be idle for no reason other than the developers telling us to and time constraints (not to be mistaken for time limits) are some of the things that really dampens any gaming experience if they are forced fed on us.

Most of the time all we want is to play and enjoy the game world without some heavy chore on our backs. Why? Because that gives us extra time to learn and master other things like the complex systems of old that some people complain about. We prefer to challenge our own minds than have a simple inconvenience for the whole duration of the game. This is more rewarding and fun in many ways and marks the difference between feeling challenged and feeling annoyed.

A salute for the times where Konami was good.

3) Games that can be serious, but are not serious about it.

Everybody likes a nice storyline that we can take seriously for a while, be it because we are emotionally invested in the game or because the plot itself is just too good. What seems to be a turn off for old schoolers are stories that can be serious and good, but take a game flow approach that is even more serious than the storyline itself, thus becoming too rigid for its own good.

Take for example Metal Gear vs Splinter Cell. There was a time where these two franchises were bitter rivals, but in the end Metal Gear came on top, mostly because of one reason. While Metal Gear kept a game flow that relaxed its serious story and made it even more enjoyable than it already was, Splinter Cell (after Pandora's Tomorrow) went for a serious/serious approach and that basically ruined it. The reason why the first 3 Splinter Cell games were so good, was because the player could do all sorts of fun things with the stealth mechanics and that made the game to be a lot more enjoyable. Sadly, later on they decided to remove all that in favor of some straight forward linearity and that broke the game.

Repeat with me: Backtracking is good! 

4)  Freedom without sacrificing substance

Any of you who that are 25 years old or older can remember the times where in the first Resident Evil we walked from what was supposed to be the end of the game back through the garden house and into the mansion in order to get the two Mo-Disks we needed and found out that the place was not safe anymore because new monsters were now prowling in it. That little example is enough to explain what freedom without sacrificing substance means. We could move basically through the whole game world without feeling pushed or forced to proceed and the story and focus of the game was kept intact (no generic stuff or excessive recycling of resources). This is why those games felt like 40 hour experiences even if they had 14 hours of gameplay at best.

Berseria is awesome, but Vesperia was the last handcrafted "Tales of" game.

5) Handcrafted game worlds

Have you ever got the feeling that the world in which you move when playing a game feels a little too structured? Roads go here, walls go there and everything seems sanitized and as organized as a set of Tetris pieces. That is good enough for dungeon crawlers or rogue rpg games where the structure is the game itself, but for games that are trying to make you believe that you are playing in a lush and detailed environment, seen this kind of thing is quite disappointing.

Why is this so disappointing? Because it give us a message that says that the game was made with a cheap approach and that most of what they did was cut corners. This feels bad, especially when the game in question is supposed to be a comeback of a beloved series (Star Ocean I am looking at you) and it kind of insults our intelligence because it implies that we will buy anything as long as it has the name of a franchise we love.

On the other hand when a "detailed" game world feels too structured and generic it really eats away any enthusiasm that we had when we started playing and anybody with a basic knowledge of how videogame logic works will immediately notice when the great big world we were sold on is not that good.

In summary:

All that we old schoolers want can be summarized in these 5 things and they are really not that hard to do. They are feats of game design that have been lost in time and we need to get back. Luckily for us, games like the ones we have been getting on this semester (Jan-May 2017) are getting back to these good practices, so not all hope is lost. Let us thrive for quality and have gaming become what it used to be while in harmony with the latest advances in technology.

Why hating on the Nintendo Switch is stupid

I normally don't rise in defense of any corporate product (believing that the companies themselves must do that with their policies), but this time I will make an exception as I don't really understand all the hate and saltiness that has been going on ever since the Nintendo's presentation of the Switch. So today, I am going to shoot down some misconceptions about Nintendo's new console that the trolls and haters are using to discredit the whole platform before it even begins. Be aware that I am not going to bash on arguments that are solid (there are a few of them out there), but the misconceptions that are just plain silly.

Now we are ready, so let's do this!

-Misconception #1:
The Switch is under-powered omg lulz...

Status: Wrong!
It may not be as powerful as the PS4 or Xbox One, but games still look quite good and while it will lose graphical power when on handheld mode, the size of the screen will make up for it. Besides, games like Super Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade 2 have a lot of detail on them, details that are been neglected in order to have something to rant about. If you thought that for the price you would be getting a portable PS4/Xbox One then you have lost touch with reality. Now talking about pricing...

-Misconception #2:
The price of the Switch is outrageous, it's the end of the world!

Status: Wrong!
The pricing while it is not the cheapest expected (which was $250), It is quite fair for what it's been offered. This hybrid console does a lot and promises a lot in terms of games so its value will increase really quick after it is launched. By the way, the gaming industry pundits that have been saying it should had been a $200 dollars price tag are maybe living on Jupiter or something because we all know that Nintendo never sells at a loss.

Another thing to take into account that the PSP and PSVITA at their respective launch days costed from 250 to 300 dollars which roughly translates to $300 or more of today's money. All of this makes this complaint to be nothing more than a simple pout because they wanted it cheaper. Underestimating the value of a product based on cheapness is not a professional thing to do.

-Misconception #3:
Paying for an online service? *sobs* we will die... Nintendo is the devil!

Status: Wrong!
The Nintendo online service becoming a paid one reminds me of that moment when Sony decided to do the same thing and everybody was moaning and complaining. Guess what? Now everybody is paying up their PS+ service nicely and it has become a lot more stable when compared to the times when it was free. Here's a tip: When you are devoid of facts then silence becomes a virtue.


-Misconception #4:
The free games on Nintendo's online service will only be available for a month, we are doomed!

Status: Debatable
How can some people use this statement when we don't even know the price that the service will have? We will have it for free until fall, so wait until they reveal more information before starting a pout fest about it.

Remember when all we had for the N64 were these 2 games? We were kids and nobody complained.

-Misconception #5:
The Switch starting lineup is just too small in terms of big games, yuck.

Status: Wrong!
Did people who said this ever thought back to the PS4 and Xbox One launch days? Big games could be counted with the fingers on one of your hands (I still remember all the jokes about it). If we go back to the past the Nintendo 64 launched with only 2 games, The Dreamcast had 4, The Saturn had 4, The Game Cube had 3, The PS2 while official lists have more than 10, we mostly had Fantavision on all stores along with Ridge Racer and Kessen for a long time. Bottom line been that a slow start doesn't mean a bad platform, get your facts straight before complaining.


-Misconception #6:
The switch library is poor, I rather play an Ngage trolololo...

Status: Wrong!
I know variety in gaming taste is a thing, but I cannot help but feel that this complaint is entirely empty and just serves as a tool for trolling. We have one of the most beautiful Legend of Zelda games ever made, we have Mario returning to its Mario 64 roots, a new Xenoblade game, Splatoon been a sequel rather than a simple port, new cool projects from Atlus and Square Enix, a cool classic Street Fighter to take on the go, Bomberman is coming back and can now take Skyrim and even Sonic Mania on the go too and this is all bad? I know some of us are dying for a new Metroid and Fzero game, but let the console run its course before talking trash, because the Switch game library is not bad, it is actually quite excellent.

-Misconception #7:
The new Mario game is a rip off of Sonic Adventure hur hur hur *burp*

Status: Wrong!
So let me see if I understand. People saying this are mostly old schoolers who want some of the old stuff coming back (I am a Sega fan myself) so now when a game comes that borrows from the style we know and love we complain about it? It doesn't make sense at all, it's ironic and kind of dumb if you ask me. Let me clarify something before I press on. If you take this from a good point of view and see it as a curiosity rather than something to complain about then this one is not for you.


-Misconception #8:
Nintendo is still for kids hue hue hue...

Status: Wrong!
Yeah well if Nintendo is still for kids I want you to give a Xenoblade game to a kid and see him go through it. When Super Mario Odyssey releases give it to a kid and see how far he/she goes without something holding his/her hand this time. Go ahead and recommend the expected No More Heroes game for Switch to a kid and see how well you do and while you are at it give some infant the Project Octopath game and see how he/she understands the game's story and battle systems. The Nintendo is for kids joke died with the Wii, get on with the times.

Wrapping things up:
I know I look like some sort of Nintendo fanboy, but believe me I am not. I wrote this article not in defense of Nintendo itself, but in defense of the optimism we need in order to see good things happen in the industry. I am all for bringing back the enthusiasm of the days of old, when gamers had a lot more cohesion, hope and illusion around new releases rather than the current sand storms and pouting festivals. I hope I cleared some points by shooting down these misconceptions for all of those who are confused by the trolls and haters. Thanks for reading and keep on gaming!

Theory: What if the Overwatch game is just the squad training in VR?

Overwatch has no in-game story mode, we all know that, but that doesn't mean that the game is bad. In fact, Overwatch is awesome in almost every aspect and it is so addicting and fun that it made me (for the first time) betray my own principle of not paying full price for a multiplayer only game. Now with that been said, I still feel like a game with such rich characters and environments (not to mention the awesome story portrayed in the trailers) deserves a lot more in-game content and the most probable explanation for what we currently have could be that...

What we are playing is the Overwatch squad training in a virtual reality environment.

Note: please take into account that at the time I am writing this, I've haven't seen any interviews or public comments made by Blizzard about this topic, so I may be talking about something that has already been explained. I apologize if that's the case, but bear with me at least for the fun of it. 

On the Overwatch trailers we can see the background story of some of the characters, the squad itself and the state of the world. In case you haven't seen the videos let me do a quick recap. Overwatch is a special squad, made by many nations in order to counter criminals and terrorists around the world. At first it was all good and well as they were considered heroes, but soon after that some evil higher power manipulated people into thinking that the Overwatch squad were also criminals.

The conspiracy that stated that the Overwatch squad were really evil got to a point where their headquarters was destroyed and all the agents scattered. Now some time into the future, Winston (the big gorilla guy) was forced to call them back into action and this is where the game begins.

So, if Winston called them into action again after some time it means that this awesome team is going to kick some terrorist ass right?

Wrong. All we do in the game is play 2 types of missions (regardless of how fun they are) over and over again, even against themselves. Some of the villains are also there, but they also fight against themselves (depending which characters the players choose) so what is really happening here?

First of all we have to consider that in the trailers, Winston seems to be in some sort of facility that features a state of the art computer A.I. called Athena. Also when playing the game's tutorial we can see that we are in a complex facility that features stuff for the agents to train with (possibly the same one where we see Winston), including a full stage with dummy enemies and everything, so considering the limited amount of things we can do in the game, it is safe to assume that the team is training again in order to return to their old war against evil. We are basically playing a prologue of the main story.

But if the squad is training how can they fight against themselves?

The answer to that question is that they are training in a virtual reality environment where they can choose to be anybody they want in order to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of every person involved (heroes and villains alike). When a player chooses to be a hero, they are not really using that hero, but a virtual representation of it and when choosing to play as a villain they take the form of an A.I. bot using a data-generated version of that villain (Widowmaker, Reaper, etc) so in a sense by playing as a villain you are really playing as Athena (the computer).

What about characters that are not exactly villains or heroes like Hanzo and Zenyatta?

Characters with their own agendas can be there just as easily because they are a potential part of the conflict themselves, like Zenyatta been an activist for the coexistence of humans and robots and Hanzo and the chance of him finding his brother Genji in any future operations. In both cases, they are people of interest whose information is there along with the rest in Athena's database. 

What about the environments of Overwatch?

The missions themselves (both of them) also look like rudimentary training for routine real missions around the world, mostly the escort of people/resources and the basics of storming a base of operations and defending it. We also have to take into account that these places are completely empty and only serve as scenarios for battles to happen, thing that is almost impossible to do in a world that forced the squad to live in the shadows. This is the reason why we don't find anything that suggest that there are real people living in the environments even though they appear to be in different places all around the world, everything is intact, clean and unaltered and the training suggests that missions are designed to be done quick and efficiently because they cannot afford to attract too much attention.     

The lack of a big guy (boss)

The lack of a big meanie to defeat in these training exercises could mean that Athena doesn't have enough information about the hierarchy of the villains (boss, officers, etc) so it does the best it can with what she has on her database. Up until now there haven't been any announcements about new modes to be added to the game, but even if they come out with something new out of a sudden and it features a boss (sort of like in moba games) that could just mean that new intelligence information was fed into Athena. All of this means that the real battle hasn't started yet and what all that the Overwatch squad has experienced since they were reunited have been some skirmishes here and there.

What about the future of the game itself?

If this theory is correct (in a storyline sense) it is quite possible that Blizzard could make a follow up to the current game (a complete plot oriented game to play), leaving the current one to be the competitive part of it all. I say this because I don't think Blizzard is the type of developer that would create such a rich game world only to tell us the story in little computer generated shorts. Their plan could be to make us fall in love with this franchise using the good multiplayer experience it provides + story shorts in a way that when they release the story oriented one, it becomes a sleeper hit by default with a really minimal amount of risk involved. If this is the case, then Blizzard's strategy is quite ingenious and brilliant.

Wrapping it up

Be it true or not. This simple theory is just a hopeful thought of mine about one day having a full Overwatch experience. Will this happen or not? I don't really know, but hey we can dream. At least the great support that the game is having coming from the gaming community means that Overwatch could live on and be strong enough to grow. Let's just enjoy what we have right now and see what happens in the future.

15 annoyances that gamers of the 90's still remember

Today I am going to go a little retro on the blog and make a list of those annoyances that we gamers in the 90's had to go through, but are completely unknown by anybody who is too young to remember. There is a lot of talk about how good gaming was in that decade, but not everything was sugar coated for us, so let's begin.

1. Living in the years when videogames became very unpopular with parents in America. This happened in the early 90's and it meant that a lot of times we were forced to play less than we wanted to and when we did play we were heavily criticized because we were "going to do bad at school", "suffer mind problems or epileptic attacks", "playing videogames that came from the devil" or just because "those things used too much electricity".

2. Been a broke (or too young to work) gamer and having to buy cheap discarded disc based games at video clubs. It was really a gamble where we had to bet 5 to 15 dollars in favor of the game actually working when we put it on our console. Sometimes it paid off, some times it didn't (and as far as I know, there were no returns).

3. Buying a game because the cover and description looked nice (information was scarce), only to find out that it was a piece of crap. In other cases it would be a good game, but one that could be finished in just a couple hours, which also felt like wasted money (I'm looking at you D!)

4. Been unable to buy a newly released game and spend months going to the video club each week to see if that sole copy of the game was available for rent.

5. Having your parents bring you a new game as a surprise, hear them boasting about how expensive it was, only to find out that is was a crappy game. You had to pretend you were having the time of your life so you were not considered an ungrateful brat.

6. Calling a gaming tips line (because some of us didn't knew about the concept of payed calls at the time) and then been scolded when a buffed up phone bill arrived.

7. Pre-ordering a game, wait for it to release, go to the store on release day and find out that the UPS (or Fedex, I don't remember) hadn't delivered the orders yet so you would have to wait for hours or just go home (which wasn't an option if you weren't old enough to drive and depended on others). This is the only thing where the standardized Tuesday release date of these times work to our advantage.

8. Having your console's internal battery go dead and be forced to go to the clock screen each and every time you turned it on (Sega Saturn owners can relate).

9. Hearing a dumb rumor about doing something incredible with your console (like using the extension sockets on a console to play games from another) and waste hours trying to do it (don't blame us, most of us were gullible kids at the time and internet was limited if not non-existent for us).

10. Trying to surf the web on a Sega Saturn or Dreamcast browser because you didn't had a computer yet. Yep, browsing on 56k modem with a browser that had an outdated Javascript version in it, fun right?

11. Been all pumped up playing a stage in a game (cartridge based), then having somebody stumble upon the gamepad's cord. Now your game graphics are all glitched and you have to hold on to dear life, hoping that when the screen changes the problem goes away and you can keep playing without having to restart the console.

12. When you had to do a lot of networking in order to borrow games so you could play them. It was sort of like bartering in ancient times because if you didn't had a game that the other person was interested in you were screwed. Also visiting a neighbor or just calling him/her out just because you wanted to borrow a game was not fun at all.

13. Been clueless about what was happening in the industry (magazines did not had it all covered) and having your hype crushed by unexpected delays, changes to the game or in the worst case scenario, the game been cancelled.

14. Renting a game that you couldn't understand (remember, most of us 90's gamers were kids at the time) and having to rely on trial and error if the video club wouldn't let you change it. (I love all rpg games now, but my first experience as a kid was Shadowgate (NES) and it was horrible to say the least).

15. Playing a disc based game that skips all over in the cinematic scenes because the disc was slightly scratched at the wrong part, you could play the game, but could not see the video cutscenes which sucked at a time where the reason you passed the stages was to see the shiny graphically polished videos.

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.

Street Fighter V shows how pessimistic we have become

Putting things straight from the very beginning I'll start this one by stating that I am not defending Capcom or any other company and because of this I am limiting myself to the human factor of this whole backlash and why I am partially against it. I will try to compress my points of view as best as I can, but I will still explain in detail why I think like I do, because otherwise my message may be mistaken, so bear with me.

In the last couple of weeks Street Fighter V has received a lot of bad press from many people on the net and while it is kind of understandable (the game was indeed sold unfinished) the battle cries have been too loud for too long up to a point in which most of us don't know if the latest criticism of the game is legit or just a strategy to get some clicks. Why do I say this? Well on the other side of the spectrum I have seen tons of videos of people just having fun with it, even on its current state (you are not getting off the hook Capcom!) and if there are people that are having fun, then this is a sign that the whole uproar is not as pristine and noble as you might believe.

Half of the problem comes the fanboy factor. Before you throw tomatoes at me I can tell you that I am not stating that everybody who criticizes the game is a fanboy (even I have my own complaints SFV), but after surfing around the net and seen how many people have reacted, I can safely say at least half of this situation is fueled by a sense of fandom. This is actually a phenomenon that is very predominant on this generation, one that I like to call "exclusivity blues" which is when somebody trashes a game just because it wasn't released on their console of choice. It is similar to what happened to games like Bloodborne (some people still say that it isn't a legitimate "souls" game), Halo 5 (trashed by many people without even playing it) and even Driveclub which was fixed and polished over time to be a good racing game, but it is still pictured negatively, regardless of its current fixed state.

Other than fanboy-ism against exclusives (the other half of the problem) we have to admit that we as a community have turned into a very pessimistic one, with some "arguments" that are really short of not making any sense. If we take Street Fighter V as an example, we can mention the fact that some people state that the game should had been delayed until June for it to be released completely. This makes sense in some ways, but if you really think about it... Wouldn't it be the same thing? If you were raised at the same time I did, you would know that sometimes we would had given anything to have a piece of the game early in order to satisfy our hunger while the rest of it was released. We went as far as going around buying demos (Remember those playstation Jampack demo discs?) and I still remember how a group of friends and I played the heck out of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater demo, up until the day it was finally released. It was crazy, but fun as hell even if it was just one stage and 2 skaters. A similar thing happened with Cool Boarders 2, so you can imagine.

My overall point about this subject is that even though criticism is good (anybody who ever read this blog knows that I bash companies a lot), we still need to do it in a precise and close to surgical way. It needs to be like this because we will otherwise sound like an unorganized angry mob instead of an educated group of people pointing out flaws in the products related to our favorite hobby. The pouting attitude doesn't help at all and just unnecessarily throws dirt on top of games that can be good, but are not given the chance just because their first impression was problematic. We have to accept that technology has enabled games to have updates and this means that most of your concerns can and most probably will be fixed in a set amount of time, so have patience and wait a little.

Ready your flame throwers for companies that just plain ignore you. For the rest just give them some time and see how hey react before raining hell on them. We need a lot more patience and positivism if we want the gaming scene to be as enthusiastic and awesome as it once was. Companies are not saints, I know, but we can't afford to make a ruckus that will kill, rather than fix the games we love. Think about this the next time you want to point your pitchforks and torches against a game.