Merry Christmas

Christmas is three days away and the holiday cheer is at an all time high, especially at my work. There's been a lot of 48 hour weeks for me, which is good. I've been playing a ton of Smash Ultimate at my friends' house and I've really upped my skills, especially with Ridley and Starfox. I've already got most of the gifts I wanted to send to my family as well. The only thing that really gets to me is the holiday playlist at work. Its the same playlist every day for the entire month! Its been crazy, to say the least...

I was thinking about treating myself this Christmas and buying some new games. I was interested in Starwars Battlefront 2 (for the graphics and Starwars skin), Battlefield One (WW1 is a great theme with cool archaic weaponry), Dragon Ball Fighter Z on Steam (maybe, my friend has it on the Switch), and possibly Fallout 76 (it sucks but it will get better). I also wanted to get the new World of Warcraft expansion Battle for Azeroth but I know if I do that I'll spend too much time gaming, as well as paying a pesky 14.99 monthly fee. Damn you Blizzard! (Side note: I've been playing a ton of Overwatch lately, and I've become a better player, mostly playing Mercy, Ana, and Moira. I'm still just slightly below Gold Tier level in Competitive but I'll get there eventually)

Other things I was thinking about was computer books through the video game publisher HumbleBundle. They're offering all these computer programming and hardware books for cheap, they're all ebooks. Other than that I was just going to save my money and just get my folks whatever last minute gifts I needed to get them. I have a lot of cool stuff as it is, I don't need anything too expensive.  

There's a lot of bad energy out there going on in the world, especially in terms of politics. I just had a Trump supporter wearing a MAGA shirt say some racist stuff to me at work. I had to let it go because I don't want to lose my job. These Right-wingers are really acting out in the public sphere, its like Charlotteville all over again. There's the government shutdown happening soon because Trump can't get his 5.7 billion dollars for his Wall, despite the fact that most Americans don't want to spend extra cash on a wall. Trump's supporters like Ann Coulter are saying that if Trump backs down and doesn't get the funding for the wall, Trump will be utterly humiliated and will definitely not get re-elected. However, I happen to think that it doesn't matter what Trump does, he won't get re-elected. I think the American people have smartened up, they're no longer willing to be political peons, they're going to fight back against everything that Trump stands for; tax cuts for the wealthy, increasing division against our allies, bad foreign policy, bad deals, ideas, and retaliation in trade, and evil treatment of refugees and those seeking asylum, especially regarding small children. There's a lot to upset about this holiday season! 

Its a political shitstorm alright. Its hard not to get angry at the direction the country is going. These Trump supporters are really coming out of the woodwork and they're not afraid to show off their racist and misogynistic views. Its hard not to talk and think about this stuff as a young progressive American citizen. Sure I live in a nice neighborhood and I'm safely sheltered unlike most Black Americans, but I believe in the progressive model. Old white men have always told me that the older I get the more I'll realize that being Republican is the smart thing to do. However, I think that's just their wishful thinking. I think the Democratic agenda is much more realistic, more humane, and will reduce the drastic gap between rich and poor regarding income inequality. In short, I believe the Democrats will help me more than the Republicans in life. I believe, if the Republicans had their way, that nobody would receive government benefits without working a certain minimum amount of hours, passing drug tests, and applying for jobs within a certain time period. Its already like that in certain states. This place has really gone to the dogs. However, its the only land I know, and love. 

But that's enough about politics. I read the news everyday and the everyday events of the Trump Whitehouse is infuriating but not shocking in the slightest. We have a long way to go in electing intelligent and thoughtful politicians (Obama anyone?), that despite their political ideology, can unify our blessed nation into a cohesive whole, especially after devastating shootings, natural disasters, and at the very least pay respects to our fallen soldiers. The Republicans are putting up with Trump because he's their guy; this is their last hour of power in Washington, if the government is going to be shut down because Trump didn't get his wall, then government be damned. As said in a popular Washingtonpost op-ed: The rats (Republicans) eventually tend to jump off the sinking ship (Trump agenda).

But all that aside the holidays this year hasn't been too bad. It hasn't been too crazy at work or in general. Life is good. I'm getting a lot of reading done and still playing guitar. Lately, I've been reading this book on computers; How Computers Work by Ron White, this book from 2008, that covers a lot of material, mostly hardware and software, how it all works. I'm getting a lot out of it and plan on reading more about computers. 

Its interesting because at first when I started reading it I thought it was boring and that I wouldn't be able to get into it. I returned it and then re-checked it out again, but this time the information stuck. It reads like a manual with a lot of diagram pictures but it makes sense and isn't too difficult to comprehend. One thing I've learned is that if you want to be good with computers you have to learn a lot of advanced mathematics as well as have a lot of patience. It would be super difficult for me to learn computer programming because I'm terrible at math and don't have a lot of patience. However, I think I can understand how hardware works and perhaps learn to be able to fix most problems on my computer with more knowledge and experience under my belt. My plan is to eventually build my own PC. I think that would be a great conclusion to my computer knowledge and experience. 

Happy Holidays to you and your family. Thanks for reading my blog and supporting my writing, whoever you are and wherever you are. And despite your politics, God bless you, and God Bless America.

Merry Christmas!

Blackened Saturday, Cyber Monday Awaits

So the sales got to me and I ended up spending more of my hard earned cash money. I ended up looking up sales online for Gamestop and I found out Fallout 4 was only $10 for pc! Great deal man. I hopped the bus and trekked out there to get it. I also ended up getting a sweet Darksiders 2 shirt for $2 at Goodwill. Talk about awesome!

A few days before I got Doom and an Xbox 1 controller. I've been putting in work in Doom and Fallout 4 as well as playing Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain on my Xbox 1.

Doom is not for pussies that's for sure. The game is graphic as all hell (literally) and has so much blood, it's pretty intense. The heavy metal soundtrack makes for hectic combat against demons from the pits of hell. Great game. I'm currently on the third level. They just introduced these stronger demons called hell knights that are tough. Sometimes it'll take me 5 shotgun shots to take them out. I gotta figure out a faster way to kill them as they are becoming more troublesome and numerous.

Fallout 4 is even better though. Both games are made by Bethesda and this is probably my favorite gaming company other than Blizzard. I'm a big Skyrim fan but I never made it too far in the series. After playing Doom and Fallout 4 I'm definitely going to go back and finish Skyrim-with mods. The mods for Fallout 4 are fantastic. There's literally so much you can do to change and/or break the game in ways devs never intended. The base game is great too. I'm only in the beginning of the game but I can tell that it's something that I'm going to put some time into. Super fun. It's much better than New Vegas, which was my only previous Fallout experience.

I'm definitely adding more single player immersion into my gaming experiences at the moment. At first I was a multiplayer only type of gamer but now I find myself wanting to relax and enjoy a story without playing with a bunch of randos (randoms in pubs-public games, as I mostly solo queue). It's good to enjoy something by yourself and enjoy the depth within the game.

Cyber Monday is today. Lots of people are going to be buying things online. Not me though. I ended my Amazon Prime sub because I didn't think it was worth the $100 a year and things just aren't that interesting on that site.

However, I am still interested in buying more games!

:D 

I might pick up Warhammer Vermintide because its only $15 on Steam. I'm also still interested in Battlefield 1 but I think I should wait on that. Even if the sale on Origin ends soon it will probably go back to $40 for Christmas sales or maybe even less by then, who knows.

Hope you all got something cool for yourselves. If you haven't get something nice today. You've earned it sport!

'Tis the season

Steam summer sale

In case you didn't know the Steam summer sale has been going on for a while. It ends on the 4th of July-really soon! If you wanted to pick up any of those triple A titles or indie games now is your last chance!

My friend got me Fallout 2 because he heard me talking about wanting to try out the older Fallouts. I mentioned to him that I thought the idea of a turn based Fallout sounded cool. It was only $5.99, not too shabby. What a great friend!

I figured I'd talk about some of the highlighted deals.

The Fallout franchise is 40-50% off. I really only wanted Fallout 2 as I have Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Plus I share my steam account with my brother who owns Fallout 4 so I can play it whenever he's not logged on. Fallout is a great series-definitely one of the best pc gaming series. 

Call of Duty Black Ops III is 50% off. I've actually wanted to get this game for a while but I held off-for good reason. I played the beta and it was great. But once the game came out for $60 I felt that was too much for what the game offered. My friend has a multiplayer competitive map only version that I can always play if I want to play it again.

Metal Gear Solid The Phantom Pain is 30% off. I've always wanted to play this game because it got god-like reviews and everybody under the sun was praising it. I haven't played a Metal Gear game since I played an older one on Gamecube as a kid. I used to love doing stealth takedowns and stuffing the bodies into lockers. Great experience. 10/10 would play again.

Rocket League is 40% off. This is a game I like to play with my friend when we chill. I've always wanted to pick it up but again, I've held off because its a game I'd only want to play when my friend is in the same room. The game offers a lot for an indie title.

Undertale is 30% off. This is another one of those must play games that I haven't played. Now that its so cheap I will probably look into it more. I dig indie retro style games because it gives me something different from the mostly multiplayer experience that I indulge in everyday. Sometimes you need to take a step back and enjoy a single player game.

The Witcher franchise is 50-85% off. I've always wanted to play The Witcher 3 the Wild Hunt. It's another one of those must play triple A titles that the gaming media hyped up-for good reason. The game is amazing.

Age of Empires HD Edition is $2.99. The original Age of Empires was one of the best rts (real time strategy games) ever made. I was just a second grader when I was playing it with my childhood friend from. We used to get a kick out of the elephant ram units. For this price it would be a shame not to pick it up.

Counter Strike Global Offensive is 50% off. If you like shooters and don't have this game yet do yourself a favor and pick it up. You won't regret it. Competitive. Massive player-base. Fun.

The Doom franchise is 40-50% off. The new Doom game has been tempting but I've held off because I heard the multiplayer wasn't as good as the single player. I've never played a Doom game but maybe now is the time.

Left 4 Dead 2 is 80% off. For this low a price and the chance to shoot thousands of zombies you would be messing up if you didn't already have this game. Not to mention the pvp combat can be fun too.

Civilization V is 75% off. This is another one of those must play pc titles. It's on every best pc games list that I've ever seen. It must be great. Although it seems like a complex rts game that I might not understand at first, if I give it a shot and learn the mechanics I might really like it. This is another one I'm definitely interested in.

Hyper Light Drifter is 20% off. Not much of a sale but I've heard great things about the game. That it's as difficult as Dark Souls with the sprites of an indie dev team. I think it would make a great game for my stream.

So I'll keep the list there because these are the games I'm the most interested in. I've come to the conclusion that I should get Civilization V and Hyper Light Drifter. Can't go wrong with that. Not bad Steam. Not bad at all. 

Coolest games from E3

So E3 just happened recently and it turned out to be a great time with wonderful new games. Lets talk about some of the cool games that we can look forward to in the near future. 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: It feels like the same old Zelda we're used to but its a huge open world design that most modern games feature. There's some sandbox elements like cutting down trees to get through paths. The graphics are cell-shady which reminds me of the Wind Waker, another great Zelda title. Can't wait to see the bosses. Time to start playing that Wii U again!

Telltales Batman: Its character driven and story-driven and its made with a new engine. Its going to feature a lot more Bruce Wayne than we're used to in Batman games. Time to put on my suit and look fancy!

Titanfall 2: The grappling hook looks great. It seems like the grappling hook idea that they had in Team Fortress 2 except way better. There's going to be a story-mode too which the first one lacked. Also, they're going to give everyone the dlc for free so that the community doesn't get divided. I've met a developer who works at Respawn and I told him how awesome the trailer looked. I also mentioned how the free dlc is a great way to keep the community together.

Horizon Zero Dawn: This is a cool action style game with a bit of Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, and Zelda. The game pits you as a primitive warrior type fighting against robotic dinosaurs and such. Domo arigato Mr. Roboto.

God of War 4: The game is still brutal and visceral and the graphics are gorgeous. An interesting new story will be a big part of it.

Battlefield 1: All the old technology used in World War I plays out well in the 64-player multiplayer mode.   

Gears of War 4: Time to get into cover!

Bloodstained:Ritual of the Night: The new Castlevania style game.

Batman Arkam VR: All about puzzles and being a detective.

Games I'm personally excited about the most.

Skyrim Special Edition: I really love Skyrim although I've never gotten that far in the game. However, I'd be down to buy the special edition because the times I've played have been so fun that I feel like I'd need it. I would definitely be down to finally finish the campaign with a special edition that includes better graphics and mod support.

Fallout 4 dlc: I haven't played Fallout 4 but the more dlc comes out, the more I want to play it. I really like Bethesda games because they are super fun single player experiences where normally I'm not a single player guy. However, all of Bethesda's games are worth playing even if you don't enjoy the single player experience as much as multiplayer.

Quake Champions: The trailer has a cool blue-haired vixen and the characters look like futuristic bad-asses. It looks especially cool because I just got into fps games competitively.

Doom dlc: So the news of more Doom dlc sounds great. Makes the game look more appealing even though I haven't bought a new game since Overwatch came out. Might want to pick this up in the future.

This year's E3 was a blast and it was cool watching the press conferences on YouTube. This year so far has already given us great titles. The most interesting game at the moment to me is the new Zelda. It will be good to see another great title on the Wii U because good titles on that console have been severely lacking as of late. The future of gaming looks brighter with each passing day. A bright sunshiny day. 

Apocalyptic Wasteland

     

      2015 was like the year of Fallout. Nobody expected Fallout 4 to come out so quickly as it did and become one of the best games of 2015. I got my brother Fallout 4 for Christmas but I didn't buy myself a copy, partly because I wasn't sure if it was my kind of game. I never played previous Fallouts but when I saw how much fun my brother and pretty much all the rest of the gaming community was having I decided to give Fallout a go. I've been told to start playing Fallout 3 first but I decided on my own that I was going to play through New Vegas first. No real logic behind it, its just that I thought New Vegas seemed cool. The idea of a Vegas-like town in a nuclear wasteland just seemed super fun. So New Vegas is my first entry to the series and so far its been great. 

     The graphics on New Vegas run on ultra high settings on my PC so it looks absolutely stunning. I run some mods on the game using Nexus Mod Manager as well. I've been playing a lot of open world games lately (Xenoblade Chronicles X, Skyrim, and New Vegas) and its been very rough getting into them. I've been putting in time and doing the quests and trying to get farther but I just seem to get lost in the huge open worlds, or just simply can't find the person I'm suppose to talk to. 

     In addition, the combat system in Fallout takes some getting used to. You can shoot in real time but I suck horribly shooting in first person like that. The VATS system of firing is more my style but you have action points so you can't just keep shooting forever in that mode. So you have to play both styles in a way. It's interesting, I think Fallout 3 was like one of the first games like that on the Xbox360 when it first came out. I would say the hardest thing about Fallout for me is the huge open world, getting around places in the map (which I find to be a crappy map system), and finding people and/or things you need for quests. 

     The actual gameplay of the game is very smooth and lets you play anyway you want. It's a flexible game when it comes to the gameplay. Its just going around and doing things that I find annoying. But I'll stick with it. I find it to be a relaxing game and I was at it for a long while today. I made some advancements in some side quests and in the main story quests. So its been good. I wish I could say the same for Xenoblade Chronicles X. In that game I'm just straight up lost and confused like the first day I played it still. There's no real tutorials in that game but thankfully there is a manual you can read in game. 

     The coolest thing about Fallout is just the environment and the stories that the characters tell. I think of it as a nuclear fallout western game complete with laser guns, super mutants, and power armor. It's just amazing. That's why everybody is playing Fallout 4 and why there are tons of people streaming it on Twitch. My plan is to eventually beat Fallout New Vegas and then play Fallout 3. Then eventually because I'm sharing my steam account play Fallout 4 when my brother isn't playing it. 

     Also, I spent a lot of time playing Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex online. Its becoming my favorite twitch shooter. I like it more than Call of Duty now. Its just so fast paced and action packed for a twitch shooter. I'm also pretty good at it surprisingly. And I've also been playing Team Fortress 2. I even hopped on and play a bit by myself. Usually I only end up playing Tf2 with my good friend. 

     On a side note, I'm going to a Smash tournament tomorrow. Genesis 3 is coming up so a lot of SoCal's best Smashers are going to be competing in that. It's like one of the biggest Smash tournaments in California and I guess this will be the third one. I'm just going to complete at a local, at this place called Fire and Dice. It's a great place and I've made a lot of good friends that are great Smash players. They've taught me so much about how to play better and I've made leaps and bounds in my playing ever since my first tournament there, which I wrote about in the blog sometime back. I'm going to go hard in the paint with Zero Suit Samus. If I lose my first round as her then I will try Veria Suit Samus. Hopefully this time around I can beat some people. Usually the people at these tournaments are very good, but I'm at a skill level now where I'm about even with them. Pretty much how I am versus people on For Glory. I'm generally better than most people, even with some, and then there are a few who just annihilate me lol. I'm always trying to improve at Smash 4. I have a strong commitment to the game and my friends and I play every-time we hang out. Wish me luck!

E3 News

     E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo happened recently here in LA! Too bad I didn't go, it would've been badass if I went and got to meet some gaming celebrities and gaming YouTube personalities. I'm a big fan of BlackNerdRants, Melonie Mac, Angry Joe, and TotalBiscuit. They really do some great videos on games and gaming in general, it would just be cool to meet someone like that. But the whole E3 experience is learning about all the new content and games that will be coming out this holiday season and next year. There is literally tons of games, too many to mention so I'll talk about some of my personal favorite new things that I've seen in the press conferences from E3 from YouTube videos. 

     First, I'm really hyped for StarWars the Old Republic. I used to play the game when it first came out but since then the game has now gone free to play (with reduced xp unfortunately if you play free) and has a couple of interesting expansions like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and something involving the Jedi Revan from StarWars Knights Of the Old Republic. Anyways check out this new expansion trailer here. I thought this trailer was badass. It shows that there's going to be a new faction in the game that doesn't seem really Sith nor Jedi, even using the neutral yellow colored lightsabers to confirm this. I really liked in the trailer how it shows how this two kids, royalty it looks like, were trained as youth to become warriors and later when they've grown up it shows them conquering planets, killing both Jedi and Sith alike, and then bringing home lightsabers from a Jedi and a Sith to their father who is most likely the Emperor of this new faction. Then one of the sons attacks his father in an attempt to kill him but the other son stops him using a force push and ends up getting sliced in the side by the attacking brother. Then the father is all like 'come with me my son.' It just breathes epicness and tugs on the emotional heartstrings as well. How could a father let his son kill his other son? So there's that game. I'm most likely going to subscribe to Swtor when this expansion comes out. It'll be out in October 2015. 

     I'm a big Star Wars guy when it comes to the games. The movies are ok but I prefer the stories in the game, although they aren't official canon. Star Wars Battlefront 3 is going to be great from the looks of the game play they showed at E3. Check it out here. This game-play footage really shows off what the game will be like on release. From the looks of it, it seems they've kept the same playing style as Battlefront 2 but made the game better with today's enhanced graphics. Every little detail in the video looks pristine and crisp. Imagine playing this game on PC on the best graphics settings possible, it will look beautiful. Parts that really stood out in this game-play footage was the part where he's just running and all of a sudden he sees a trooper get force choked, and Darth Vader walks out into the battlefield! And then Luke Skywalker walks out and starts to attack Vader! So that kind of shows that you will be able to play as heroes like Jedi and Sith Lords. The game seems to me to be an updated version of Battlefront 2, which is all a great Star Wars video-gaming fan can dream for. 

     Then, there's the Final Fantasy VII remake. Check out the trailer here. I don't feel like Final Fantasy VII needs a remake but it will be interesting seeing how the game will look with today's enhanced graphics. I wonder if they will change anything about the game that is really different. They could make it like a modern Final Fantasy game, which are actually pretty terrible in my opinion. It's something to be excited about because the original was pretty much the game of my childhood. Final Fantasy was my Ocarina of Time, even though I played Zelda as well. Playstation one was my life as a kid. I enjoyed playing all those rpgs like Final Fantasy Tactics, FF8-9-10-. Legends of Dragoon, and Xenogears. Great times! 

     Lastly, the announcement of Fallout 4. I personally haven't played any of the Fallouts but my brother has and I often watch streams on twitch.tv of people streaming Fallout 3. I just find it to be a really entertaining game to watch. Plus, its one of the best kind of dystopian game series out there!

     Lastly, there's tons of stuff but too much to write about in one sitting. My friend from work made a list of all the games from E3 that he's planning to get. They include so many games but most of them are shooters or action oriented shooters based on tactical game play and decision making. Unfortunately I haven't heard anything really good coming from Nintendo at E3. All I've heard about is a Super Mario Maker game where you can make your own Mario levels and play them online with people and a really bad looking game that looks inspired by Metroid Prime. I wish they could have announced that they were making an American version of Xenoblade Chronicles X, that would have been sick! But we didn't get any news about Xenoblade at all. One of my good friends seemed dissapointed with Nintendo this year, reasonably so. There's way more games but I just haven't gotten to watching the footage or trailers yet. But this is definitely a great time to be a gamer. All the technology and the graphics are all just top notch. What a time to be alive!