Computer Issues, Scorpio (Crazy) Theories, and Dragon Age: Origins...and a little on Kinda Funny
First I'll talk about Kinda Funny a little bit, I don't think I have mentioned them on this blog. It is basically a few people from IGN (Greg Miller, Colin Moriarty, Nick Scarpino, and Tim Getty's) who decided a couple years ago that they didn't want to keep working at IGN and having to keep doing the same content, that is reviewing video games and having to play games in a certain way and try to beat them fast and not be able to cover other stuff outside of games. So they launched Kinda Funny so that they can talk and review games how they want to as well as cover many different topics outside of video games, I highly recommend most of their content. Anyway this last couple weeks has been turbulent for them, on National Women's Day #ADayWithoutWomen Colin tweeted a joke that basically said Ah.. Peace and Quiet #ADayWithoutWomen then for some reason this set some people off to get really offended for no reason as people tend to do, then the people who are pissed off that people get offended too easily came roaring into the picked and just made it a much bigger thing than it was even with the original people offended by the tweet. On top of that Colin and the rest of Kinda Funny have been increasingly wanting to cover different topics in different ways, it is pretty easy to notice that the last few months Colin has been getting bored covering video games in the same way with a few exceptions of games that he was passionate about. With his new series he started #ColinWasRight and #AConversationWithColinWasRight it was pretty obvious that he missed doing real pieces of journalism and getting stories and covering more meaty and tricky topics than just how much we like or dislike this or that video game. He has also started to do guest spots on political podcasts The Rubin Report and the Glenn Beck show, he is scheduled to be on The Joe Rogan Experience any day now. Anyway, a week after the tweet and all the blowback from it, not because of it but just in that timeline Colin left Kinda Funny. I know a bunch of people on the video comments and forums have been getting pissed at either Colin or the rest of the crew at Kinda Funny (Except Nick, try and get mad at him..I'll wait). But it really did seem to be as close to mutual as this type of breakup can be. I don't really have much of an opinion on this, people way overreacted, both the "SJW" and the anti-SJW responded even more aggressively, but in the end I really do get the feeling that Colin just wanted to do something different so that is my opinion on that. I am sad to see him go as he is the person on Kinda Funny that I most usually agree with his point of view and his take on games and other topics they discuss, I almost never agree with Tim, he frustrates me. I still appreciate his side of the argument, but Colin's point of view is usually based more on hard facts and long term gamimg/journalistic knowledge and usually resonates with me more. I am excited to see where he goes and what he has coming up next, I am also still very into Kinda Funny and still enjoying their content (though just not quite as much, Nick is still there though).
I have had computer issues the last couple weeks, I think I fixed it, for some reason my wireless driver has been uninstalling and deleting itself, even just after resetting the computer, but I think I fixed it for now, but because of this I had to reset my computer multiple times and am going to have to redownload all of my games so I lost all my progress on The Banner Saga. I plan to pick it back up again but when I have a good amount of time so that I can just (Hopefully) breeze through the first bit and catch back up to where I was, but I know that I will just need a big play session in order to do that as I would lose interest if I was to try to do it 10 minutes at a time like I was before.
On another note Evolve is free to get this month from Xbox Live Gold, I am very excited and have really been wanting to try that game.
The game I have been playing is Dragon Age: Origins, which is one of my favorite games from the 360 era. I love that game, the fighting and action is okay, old school just like Kotor but not old school like turn based FF games. But it's the world, character, and story that really resonates with me. I love the idea of the Grey Wardens and how it has been so long that they were needed that people just assume that you aren't very important or needed like in the past. But you know that a huge war is coming so it is down to you and your few followers to try and unite the county and fight together against the growing darkspawn threat. I love how you interact with your characters, most dialogue discussions gives you multiple ways to answer a question and it's not always just be the good guy and people will like you. there are a few people in your party that think you are wasting time by helping people who aren't important, also all the choices are not straight forward, should you use blood magic to hopefully try and save a child's life? Seems like yes, but some in your party really hate blood magic and know that it is outlawed for a reason so you piss them off as you make choices that seem like the right thing. Some characters appreciate a certain amount of joking and lightheartedness others only like straightforward answers, it really is interesting to get to know that characters and learn how to best respond to each of them. You also get bonuses for the characters when they like you more, so you actually have a reason to try to max out each characters fondness for your character. Very fun game, ahead of it's time in party interaction and development (not quite as ahead of it's time as Kotor though).
Mass Effect: Andromeda will be out next week, I have heard and seen mostly Meh things about it, where people don't like the voice acting or the face animation is wonky and just not good, the storyline is a bit cheesy at the beginning, all of these complaints though really don't affect the game for me though, voice acting and bad animation in some dialogue really does not bother me, and I prefer more cheesiness in my games than most people, especially the type of people who review games for a living. So in short I don't think the cons on the game so far are going to affect my enjoyment of the game.
The last thing I want to throw out there is my hopes for the Xbox Scorpio. I have a few thoughts and theories what I think the Scorpio could/should be. I don't agree with the inter-generational update for consoles like the PS4 Pro did, so inherently I am not a fan of what the Scorpio is saying right off the bat, on top of that the messaging behind the Scorpio has been not straightforward and there seems to be mixed messaging. My theories come from a place of what I hope they will do, what I think is the only way the Scorpio can really succeed, and based around assuming that Microsoft hasn't lied to us (as far as saying that games going forward will still be playable on Xbox One). To start with I think the Scorpio (and future consoles) will just be marketed as just Xbox. Each new console coming out will be Xbox and it will always be assumed that you are talking about the current iteration of the console.. how can that work though...the same way it works with PC. Which brings me to my next theory, the Scorpio will be a PC/Console hybrid, I think that the new "Xbox" games coming out will work on Xbox and every Xbox going forward, there will be a slider in the game that will dictate which console you are playing on and therefore what type of graphics and other specs the game will use, similarly to how you pick High, Medium, or Low settings when you install a computer game on a PC. Each new Xbox will just adjust the slider, so Scorpio will be high and Xbox One will be the lower setting. Then 3-4 years from now they will release a new Xbox which will be the new High setting and Scorpio will become the Medium or Low setting, and Xbox One will likely become obsolete by that time. The next thought is how they plan to make each game playable for life, just look at how hard they have been pushing backwards compatibility, it seems each week Major Nelson is tweeting about multiple new games that are backwards compatible. I think working essentially like a computer it will be much easier for Xbox to come with an emulator of the previous console built in or downloaded later. They have pretty much been forced by the fans to do it with both the 360 and the One so I think they have learned that future proofing games from now on is a very real issue that will never go away that fans will always want. The big issue that Microsoft made for themselves last year was announcing Play Anywhere, basically that every Microsoft game going forward will have to be playable on both the Xbox Console and Microsoft Windows PC, I think the Play Anywhere decision makes much more sense if the Xbox is close to a PC anyway, and I actually am going to take it a step further and say that Xbox essentially runs on Windows software so that any game that comes out for PC and is playing on Windows will be playable on Xbox Scorpio, which would be huge for them. I think they can sense that many gamers almost wish that they had a PC but they really don't want to deal with building a PC and making sure that they have all the graphics cards and CPU's and that stuff to make sure that their PC is up to date enough to play the games, this would be essentially coming out with a PC that eliminates the need for that and it is extremely obvious that if you want to play everything on the highest settings you will need to get each new Xbox upgrade, if you don't mind playing a game on the medium settings and graphics then you can get away with just buying every other Xbox or even just buying used versions of the last Xbox model whenever a new one comes out.
So I think I am missing a point or two that I was thinking of with the Scorpio, but I forgot, I have had these theories pretty much since Scorpio was announced, I just want to get them out there before anything is really announced with Scorpio so that I can see where I am right or wrong.
Oh I just remembered another thought with the PC/Console Hybrid I think that the Scorpio is going to have a disk drive, but that Microsoft will push digital game downloads really hard and probably even offer deals on brand new games, so that maybe a digital brand new game might be 55$ instead of 60$ or something similar. Then based on how well that push towards the digital future of gaming goes I think that the next iteration of the Xbox (after Scorpio) will not have a disc drive if they think that the market has caught on to buying digital games in a huge percentage.
Well I think that is about it really, sorry about my theories on Scorpio coming out scattered and rambly, I thought about trying to organize them or use bullet points but I don't want to spend the time to do that right now. Many of the theories I know are very far fetched and have a small chance, but I just think that this is the only way that the Scorpio and Xbox going forward can really succeed in a big way. bye bye.
I have had computer issues the last couple weeks, I think I fixed it, for some reason my wireless driver has been uninstalling and deleting itself, even just after resetting the computer, but I think I fixed it for now, but because of this I had to reset my computer multiple times and am going to have to redownload all of my games so I lost all my progress on The Banner Saga. I plan to pick it back up again but when I have a good amount of time so that I can just (Hopefully) breeze through the first bit and catch back up to where I was, but I know that I will just need a big play session in order to do that as I would lose interest if I was to try to do it 10 minutes at a time like I was before.
On another note Evolve is free to get this month from Xbox Live Gold, I am very excited and have really been wanting to try that game.
The game I have been playing is Dragon Age: Origins, which is one of my favorite games from the 360 era. I love that game, the fighting and action is okay, old school just like Kotor but not old school like turn based FF games. But it's the world, character, and story that really resonates with me. I love the idea of the Grey Wardens and how it has been so long that they were needed that people just assume that you aren't very important or needed like in the past. But you know that a huge war is coming so it is down to you and your few followers to try and unite the county and fight together against the growing darkspawn threat. I love how you interact with your characters, most dialogue discussions gives you multiple ways to answer a question and it's not always just be the good guy and people will like you. there are a few people in your party that think you are wasting time by helping people who aren't important, also all the choices are not straight forward, should you use blood magic to hopefully try and save a child's life? Seems like yes, but some in your party really hate blood magic and know that it is outlawed for a reason so you piss them off as you make choices that seem like the right thing. Some characters appreciate a certain amount of joking and lightheartedness others only like straightforward answers, it really is interesting to get to know that characters and learn how to best respond to each of them. You also get bonuses for the characters when they like you more, so you actually have a reason to try to max out each characters fondness for your character. Very fun game, ahead of it's time in party interaction and development (not quite as ahead of it's time as Kotor though).
Mass Effect: Andromeda will be out next week, I have heard and seen mostly Meh things about it, where people don't like the voice acting or the face animation is wonky and just not good, the storyline is a bit cheesy at the beginning, all of these complaints though really don't affect the game for me though, voice acting and bad animation in some dialogue really does not bother me, and I prefer more cheesiness in my games than most people, especially the type of people who review games for a living. So in short I don't think the cons on the game so far are going to affect my enjoyment of the game.
The last thing I want to throw out there is my hopes for the Xbox Scorpio. I have a few thoughts and theories what I think the Scorpio could/should be. I don't agree with the inter-generational update for consoles like the PS4 Pro did, so inherently I am not a fan of what the Scorpio is saying right off the bat, on top of that the messaging behind the Scorpio has been not straightforward and there seems to be mixed messaging. My theories come from a place of what I hope they will do, what I think is the only way the Scorpio can really succeed, and based around assuming that Microsoft hasn't lied to us (as far as saying that games going forward will still be playable on Xbox One). To start with I think the Scorpio (and future consoles) will just be marketed as just Xbox. Each new console coming out will be Xbox and it will always be assumed that you are talking about the current iteration of the console.. how can that work though...the same way it works with PC. Which brings me to my next theory, the Scorpio will be a PC/Console hybrid, I think that the new "Xbox" games coming out will work on Xbox and every Xbox going forward, there will be a slider in the game that will dictate which console you are playing on and therefore what type of graphics and other specs the game will use, similarly to how you pick High, Medium, or Low settings when you install a computer game on a PC. Each new Xbox will just adjust the slider, so Scorpio will be high and Xbox One will be the lower setting. Then 3-4 years from now they will release a new Xbox which will be the new High setting and Scorpio will become the Medium or Low setting, and Xbox One will likely become obsolete by that time. The next thought is how they plan to make each game playable for life, just look at how hard they have been pushing backwards compatibility, it seems each week Major Nelson is tweeting about multiple new games that are backwards compatible. I think working essentially like a computer it will be much easier for Xbox to come with an emulator of the previous console built in or downloaded later. They have pretty much been forced by the fans to do it with both the 360 and the One so I think they have learned that future proofing games from now on is a very real issue that will never go away that fans will always want. The big issue that Microsoft made for themselves last year was announcing Play Anywhere, basically that every Microsoft game going forward will have to be playable on both the Xbox Console and Microsoft Windows PC, I think the Play Anywhere decision makes much more sense if the Xbox is close to a PC anyway, and I actually am going to take it a step further and say that Xbox essentially runs on Windows software so that any game that comes out for PC and is playing on Windows will be playable on Xbox Scorpio, which would be huge for them. I think they can sense that many gamers almost wish that they had a PC but they really don't want to deal with building a PC and making sure that they have all the graphics cards and CPU's and that stuff to make sure that their PC is up to date enough to play the games, this would be essentially coming out with a PC that eliminates the need for that and it is extremely obvious that if you want to play everything on the highest settings you will need to get each new Xbox upgrade, if you don't mind playing a game on the medium settings and graphics then you can get away with just buying every other Xbox or even just buying used versions of the last Xbox model whenever a new one comes out.
So I think I am missing a point or two that I was thinking of with the Scorpio, but I forgot, I have had these theories pretty much since Scorpio was announced, I just want to get them out there before anything is really announced with Scorpio so that I can see where I am right or wrong.
Oh I just remembered another thought with the PC/Console Hybrid I think that the Scorpio is going to have a disk drive, but that Microsoft will push digital game downloads really hard and probably even offer deals on brand new games, so that maybe a digital brand new game might be 55$ instead of 60$ or something similar. Then based on how well that push towards the digital future of gaming goes I think that the next iteration of the Xbox (after Scorpio) will not have a disc drive if they think that the market has caught on to buying digital games in a huge percentage.
Well I think that is about it really, sorry about my theories on Scorpio coming out scattered and rambly, I thought about trying to organize them or use bullet points but I don't want to spend the time to do that right now. Many of the theories I know are very far fetched and have a small chance, but I just think that this is the only way that the Scorpio and Xbox going forward can really succeed in a big way. bye bye.
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