Category: Latest

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Quantum Break PC version is Windows 10 store only!

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In case you haven’t heard, the anticipated Xbox One exclusive Quantum Break is now coming to the PC. The bad news, it’s a Windows 10 store exclusive.

I don’t know how Microsoft works on the inside or who is running the show but I do know that releasing your first cross platform (game after admitting past mistakes and the promise of taking a better approach toward PC gamers) on only Windows 10 new store is how you piss people off. Look mate, I’m currently running a legit version of Windows 10 home edition so it’s not that I’m hating on the windows or anything, it’s just the untrusted Windows 10 store that I have a problem with!

Don’t blame me if I’m not a fan of buying things from an OS store especially after the Games for windows fail that I supported back in the day. With Stea it’s clear, you buy the game and can install it on as many PCs as you like and even have an offline mode. Windows 10 store, not so much. Not releasing your biggest game on the most popular distribution platform is basically making sure that the game won’t sell well.

But I know whats going on, it’s a sad trap to lure in user to upgrade and use Windows 10. About a good chunk of gamers are still on Windows 7 and for a good reason. Spying issues, the open door to disable and monitor what you do on your PC and the list goes on. Why do you think Microsoft is basically giving away Windows 10 for free to 7/8 owners?

Why do I care? I was planning to run this game on my newly ordered 980 GTX but seeing all this now I think I will be happier playing on my Xbox One. Who knows how long this great Windows 10 store is gonna last?!

Microsoft, if you want to capitalize on PC Gaming then stop playing tricks with us. PC gamers unlikely console folks will not accept bullshit just because the company said so. Look at Arkham Knight. I for one hope that Microsft realize the huge mistake before it’s too late and give us options. A physical version won’t hurt as well.

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30th Birthday Special

I finally joined the 30s club, and what a ride it was.

Growing older and celebrating birthdays was big to me until I turned 27 and realized that doing what I love is what I should be doing instead of waiting for the perfect opportunity. I started blogging, kick started my Youtube channel and continued writing for GamefAQs.com.

The thing I learned from the previous 30 years is to not wait and do what you love as soon as it crosses your mind. There is no such a thing as the perfect time. I also learned to finish things and work extra hard instead of pushing things in volumes. Quality over quantity is what you should be doing. But the, even more, an important thing is to actually release your work.

I can honestly say I’m excited and optimistic entering the new phase of my life following my dreams and doing what I love on both career and hobby wise. I must also say that I matured and leveled up in many of life’s tasks. Being a better person while keeping the fundamental core of whom you are is the way to go.

Overall, I like to believe that I had a good run up till this point and things will only get better.

Looking forward to my new projects. Thanks for following and supporting my content.

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Quake Live, how NOT to do things!

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Greed, a very bad and unhealthy thing that cursed the world of gaming as well as all other form of entertainment. Developers are looking to make a quick buck off old titles and broken games is nothing new and Quake Live is the latest victim of greed.

To be perfectly clear, I’m not against developers making money. They put in hard work -most of the times- and deserve to be paid. What I don’t support is broken games, old washed out remasters and in this case the sudden change to the most evil thing in the human history; Subscription model.

The loyal fans that supported this game suddenly lost everything including statistics and progress when the team decided to make it a paid subscription only without any warning. Yes developers reserve the right to do what they please with the game they created but please remember that pissing off loyal customers did not even well for many.

Moving on to the Subscription model, how many times do we need to make thinks clear; WE HATE this greedy scam! A one time payment is more than enough and we like it to be this way. If they need to maintain servers they could make it that anyone can host them like the original Quake 3 and thanks to that even Dreamcasat players can still connect and play to the self hosted servers by anyone.

Greed is killing the industry, not higher cost and it will only get worse. A friend once told me: Games used to be art, we make the best game we can. Now its just about money, we work as little as possible and charge the customer dry.

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GTA V PS4 patch downgrades graphics for preformance

Grand_Theft_Auto_V

Well well well, looks like PS4 gamers are getting PCed if thats a word. Latest reports claim that the latest GTA V makes the game look little worse in return for performance boost. Not the kind of patch I expected but here is the thing;

Consoles are not PCs, never were never will. When you initially program the game, take in mind the most important thing; Performance. Should the developers optimized the game from the start this whole thing wouldn’t have had to happen and we wouldn’t know the difference to begin with.

Now that this magic patch was released this will forever hunt the game, platform and some gamers. I understand that both side make an argument but this whole thing could have been avoided from the start, considering we are talking about last gen game.

I cant help but feel I’m gaming on 1999 PC where I have to balance out the graphics and performance, this shouldn’t happen on consoles as all PS4s are the same and developers should have thought about this before releasing or should I say re releasing GTA 5.

On the other hand, where is the PC version? PC gamers are told to wait for better optimization so the devz better deliver or we will have another pointless wait.

Overall, I find this new practice little strange and don’t belong in console gaming. Gone are the days where developers put in allot of time and effort releasing their games on PlayStation one and Sega Saturn without any patch or fix and games worked fine. New days, we have lazy developer releasing half made games with micro transactions and DLCs to milk you of every dollar.

I understand games are harder to make and cost more but stuff like this should not happen regardless. At least give us the option to on off this.

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Forza Horizon 2 is coming to PC [Rumor]

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Rumors can be a tricky business, they can be started by anyone and fade away even quicker but once in awhile turn true. This may be the case with Forza Horizon 2 rumored to be coming to Windows 7 and 8 soon. It all started with Amazon listing Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon, and although both were pulled later this can only mean one thing: The rummer is true.

Why would Amazon suddenly make a listing by itself? The above makes sense with Xbox One not selling as anticipating it makes sense for Microsoft to port these tittles to a growing platform, aka PC gaming. I been saying this for sometime; Forza on the PC will be great. Downloadable cars and tracks by the mod community along with other extras, whats not to like?

Some will argue that it may hurt Xbox One sales as the struggling system needs exclusive for which I can simple reply with: It wont matter. PC gaming is not directly competing with consoles. Back at the day SEGA used to release and port games to the PC despite having a console.

My only concern is how will they market it? Games for Windows Live is dead so the way I see it they can release it on Steam or Windows Store. Steam is by far the best and the biggest PC gaming online store there is so releasing the game on valve’s tool is the best thing for business. The problem is, Microsoft store will be competing with Steam and the achievements thing handled by  non Microsoft software could be a problem.

If only Microsoft made Games for Windows Live more stable, easy to use and overall consumer acceptable like Origin is trying, things would have changed for the better. Never the less its not too late, as they say: Better Late than Never.

I’m looking forward to playing this on my PC with improved graphics and community created content and hope it seals well so that Microsoft can then start porting Halo and Gears of War collection in 4K.

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Nvidia CEO: Consoles are dying

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And so I think that there’s too many other ways to enjoy games now, for the game console to enjoy the hay days of the past. But we’ll see. The thing that I do know is this, without any question is that the PC is continuing to expand the number of titles. Great titles are coming to the PC. It’s is continuing to grow and the quality of titles is growing up ever so fast. – Jen-Hsung

Read more: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-golden-days-consoles-over-other-ways/#ixzz3J9VnCTiG

So unsurprisingly Nvidia CEO officially voiced his opinion on consoles and PCgaming and it makes sense. Now before you acuse me of anti consoles; I own old and new gen and game on everything from Game boy color to Xbox One. PC gaming has grown to the point were almost every type of game is available unlikely the PS2 era were PC gaming was restricted to shooters and RTS. New days, everything from platforms to sports are available on Steam, GOG or Origin as well as physical copies so there is no shortage.

PC gaming problems decreased over the years as well. Gone are the days were a game would not install or you need to configure stuff for it to work correctly . Of course, some issues are there and you will get into trouble if you don’t know what your doing but that’s very rare these days. I can simply plug in an Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller and enjoy The Evil Within on big screen and that’s exactly how I played it.

Almost always the game looks, feels and plays better on PC and once a problem is discovered you are not limited to the support of the company who made the game as the community puts up unofficial patches all the time if not even better than the official. You are not alone and people are always there to help.

Now do I think consoles will die soon? No but they will continue to decline until there is no point. Back at the day consoles were special with special games and overall feel, not they are basically PC parts put together in a box. Nintendo on the other hand is trying hard to keep the console era alive by putting out great console type games.

I enjoyed playing Sega Saturn, PS one and Dreamcast but new days I just cant get into consoles like I used to. The need to install and 15 GB patches and have problems that Pc gaming used to have turned me away. I still enjoy Nintendo, retro and 3DS but that’s about it.

I really hope that consoles go back to the way they used to be; Fun and simple.

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A new Tony Hawk game is at work

TonyHawkHDArtGood news skaters and THPS fans; the man Tony himself twitted that he is working on another game with Activision. He also confirmed that the upcoming mobile game Shred Session was put on hold in order to fully concentrate on the next big project. Its about time if you ask me. As a big time Tony Hawk Pro Skater series fan I find this news exciting considering we haven’t good a proper game since American Wasteland and arguably Proving Ground.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater was always about insane yet fun tricks with new things in every new game until motion came and broke the series. Here is the THPS games chart:

 

Name Year released Consoles Developer Type
Pro Skater 1999 PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, N-Gage Neversoft Main series
Pro Skater 2 2000 PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Windows, Mac, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance
Pro Skater 3 2001 PlayStation, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, Xbox, Windows, Mac
Pro Skater 2X Xbox Treyarch Port
Pro Skater 4 2002 PlayStation, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Windows, Mac, Xbox Neversoft Main series
Underground 2003 PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Windows
Underground 2 2004 PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Windows, Game Boy Advance, Mobile phone
Underground 2: Remix 2005 PlayStation Portable Shaba Games Port
American Wasteland PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, Windows Neversoft Main series
American Sk8land Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance Vicarious Visions Port
Downhill Jam 2006 PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, Wii Toys for Bob Spin-off
Project 8 PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable Neversoft Main series
Proving Ground 2007 PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360
Motion 2008 Nintendo DS Creat Studios Spin-off
Ride 2009 PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 Robomodo
Shred 2010
Pro Skater HD 2012 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows Remake
Shred Session[2] 2014[3] iOS, Android Big Bit Spin-off
Currently untitled sequel 2015[4] TBA TBA Main series

As you can see, its been sometime since we last played a proper TH game. I just hope that Activision gets it right with all the next Gen power available. I want a fun open city world with missions ranging from bigger to sick with folks walking around and possibly real traffic. What I don’t want however is a Skate Clone. As much as Skating is fun in real life -I do aggressive inline- the game should at least have some kind of insanity.

I agree doing crazy and stupid stuff all the time breaks the game but what I mean is balance. American Wasteland in my opinion combined both. Some would argue that THPS 4 was the last real Tony game but I disagree. While THPS 4 was keep the series in the same zone as the first three games, Underground 2 took it further with new rides and missions. Underground one was good, but the lack of a good story and gameplay made it an ok game. Still better than the later ports.

I am very excited and awaiting further details as they come.

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Farcry 4 pulled from Steam along with other future Ubisoft games [UPDATED]

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UPDATE: So it seems that the games are back on Steam ending the speculations and discarding this blog post. I gotta give Ubisoft respect for sorting this out and eliminating the problem I wrote bellow. The article stays as reference as its still hold information on the current status of Uplay not to mention you still need it when starting some games through Steam.

Want to preorder the latest Ubisoft games? Sure, but you will need to install and do so through Uplay. Ubisoft pulled Farcry 4, Assassins Creed Unity and The Crew from Steam but says its negotiating with Valve. First EA and now this? Lets get something straight here; Uplay is in no way near Steam or even Origin. I personally installed Uplay when I wanted to play Trials Evelution Gold Edition which I bought on Steam and apart from the slow and overall ugly interface, the game was running turtle slow even tough I can play The Evil Within fine.

Ubisoft saw Valve and EA do it and thought they would jump on the train as well. I have no problem with competition and I welcome it with open arms as long as its good. In this games, Uplay needs allot of work both on the inside and out, until then stop forcing people to use it. Better yet, keep your games on Steam AND Uplay so we as consumers can have a choice. Business is business I get it but keep in mind you cant screw the consumer and move on. Allot of us were looking forward to preordering FarCry on steam and no we wont.

The other two tittles which were pulled as well are Assassins Creed Unity and The Crew. I was looking forward to The Crew as I think it can bring a new thing to racing and open world in general but until I make sure that I will be able to enjoy the game my way without jumping through programs and logins I wont and trust me Ubisoft, I’m not the only one.

We live in the day and age of self branding hence this blog but give people a choice, you gonna get your money in any case. Sell the game through steam while slowly but surly working on Uplay until its ready and tested and people will automatically buy them through your platform, not by force. I hope Ubisoft and EA rethink this through and give us the gamers the choice we deserve.

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Activision disables PS4 Share Play in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

CODAWLooking forward to sharing a friendly game of the new Call of Duty Advanced Warfare using the new PS4’s share play? Sorry you cant, Activision has despite Sony’s promise that all PS4 games are share ready disabled this feature in its latest COD. The reason is that Activision is currently testing the new feature to insure that it will benefit the game and it’s fan base.

I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but obvious greed is obvious. Call of Duty is one of the top multi platform AAA title which happens to have an online mode that enables friends and stranger to play together. Need I explain more? Just in case, share play allows a person to share his game with his or her friend meaning at least one lost sale, now imagine half the PS4’s version fan base starts doing that? 50% lost sales as in previous version each and everyone who wants to play the game be it online or off line had to purchase his own copy. Gone now, many gamers will probably come up with a shared money to buy a few copies and share play them together which means lost sales.

I understand Activision wants to generate money but frankly speaking they made enough already and instead of blocking the feature, they should have just accepted the new policy and took the hit if any. The blame is also placed on Sony for promising something and delivering something else. All games are share play ready. I hope that Activision is forced into enabling a promised feature of the PS4 without effecting the players. Sony on the other hand should act as fast as possible to avoid losing face with broken promise.