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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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10 Xbox 360 games that must be added to Xbox One backwards compatibility list

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10 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

Love it or hate it, you cant ignore it. Call of duty MW3 is arguably the best multiplayer version among all CODs. It is only fair to bring it to Xbox One as the game has an active online community to this day. Even the story mode is not that bad.

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9 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Beautiful world with magical creatures and a horse to ride, whats not to like? Seriously though, the world is big and amazing. I spent my fair share of exploring the land and it never gets old. The fighting animation is little off but other elements make up for it.

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8 Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Zombie mode! People still play this beside MW3 on Xbox 360 so why not port it to Xbox One as well?

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7 Sonic Generations

A sad fact, the classic SEGA is long gone and replaced with generic games and mobile ports. Sonic Generations is an exception! I don’t know how, but Sonic Team did make a great Sonic game after Dreamcast. Sadly, the game did not get the attention it deserves.

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6 Grand Theft Auto IV: The Complete Edition

Its GTA for Christ sake! Fifth part is all well and good but don’t forget the classic that many awaited on then so next gen.

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5 Batman Arkham Collection

Arkham Asylum brought back Batman from the dead. The super hero never looked better. Rumors has it that Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are being remaked for Xbox One and PS4, is so then I suppose its not a great idea to bring these two back. Origins seems to be the logical choice.

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4 Resident Evil 6 Archives

Bringing Resident Evil 4,5 and 6 to Xbox One is a must! Resident Evil is a well established series to simply ignore.

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3 Dead Rising

Even though the 3rd part is an Xbox One exclusive (also on PC), the first part deserves credits for being fun and original.

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2 Alan Wake

I personally never played it even though I own it on both Xbox 360 and PC, but the good reviews as well as word of mouth made this worthy #2 on the list.

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1 Red Dead Redemption

GTA on horses! Microsoft already confirmed plans to make this compatible in the next update but nothing is for sure. Anyhow, this game makes the number 1 spot in this list!

. . . . . .

That was my list, I would love to hear your suggestions. Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

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Gears of War Judgment on Xbox One

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Gears of War Judgment, better gameplay than 3 with worse Horde mode. A perfect balance lol. Jokes aside, Judgment had the best weapon switch up and enhanced gameplay along graphics and deserves to be played again. Having received it for free with ultimate edition I downloaded it and started online versus mode.

Being a VIP member, I jumped on the special event which is explosive weapons for all with no ammo to be picked on the ground. I played this mode with a friend for about 8 rounds and managed to reach level 50 -I was 44-. The game is still fun with an active community and great maps and modes unlikely the ultimate edition. I suggest getting the DLCs for maximum fun from the Xbox 360 store or the website.

The Survivor aka Horde mode is weaker than the previous Gears 3 due to the addition of the generator protection but its still fun to play and enjoy. The difficulty is also greater than 3.

Once again, all Gears of War collection comes free with the Ultimate Edition should you play it before December 1st. I already have the original disk, buthaving everything on my hard drive without switching discs is more convenient. I just wished that Microsoft would have increased Anti-aliasing as the games lookless dated. Other than that, a must play to this day until Gears of War 4 comes out, hopefully with a better online play than Ultimate Edition.

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Gears of War 3 on Xbox One first impression

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Xbox 360 backwards compatibility is finally live. Unfortunately, the Gears of War collection will go live for the ones bought Gears of War ultimate edition on December 1st unless you have the original DVD like me. Upon inserting the disk into the drive, the install option appeared. Upon clicking it, I was greeted with an 8 GB download patch. Apparently, the disk inside is just for verification purposes as it downloads the whole game to your drive yet you cant play it without the original disk.

Since I always leave my Xbox One on standby mode for it to download updates while I’m away, the download and install was done in the background ready for me to fire it up once I relaunched the console. Clicking start on the game found in my apps brought down the manage menu with all the DLCs waiting for my command. I clicked download all and finally started the game.

The game loaded fine with a sudden message that the system is trying to get my Xbox 360 information. The message disappeared within 3 minutes and the classic signed into Xbox Live appeared. My progress got downloaded from the server and I’m right where I left off. I tried getting into an online match, but the game informed me that I needed to download some DLC. As I was about to exit, one of the DLCs downloaded and the online play was now available.

I joined a quick match and the game started. Man, and I thought Gears of War ultimate edition was not an improvement. Don’t get me wrong, thew gameplay and mechanics in Gears 3 eats the ultimate edition alive but the graphics were not what I remembered. Rest assure, after about 5 minutes you wont notice a thing. The game is the best in the series so far and for a good reason. The community is still strong and joining games takes seconds.

The gameplay was fine with no noticeable glitches. Sometimes the game would slow down, but that’s not the backwards compatibility issue. I will be testing the game further along with the rest soon. Apart from me wishing that Microsoft would at least increased the Anti-aliasing, the game looks and plays good. Go Xbox.

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It’s time to stop treating PC Gamers like thieves

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I think we can all agree that it’s time to stop calling PC Gamers thieves and more importantly, stop treating them like one. Articles like this dominated the general uneducated public mainly greedy developers and ignorant console fanboys for years.

It’s funny because Ubisoft claimed that 95% Of PC Gamers Are Pirates in previous statements only to announce that PC division is bringing in about 20% of total revenue behind the PS4’s 27%. Strange world, if everyone is a pirate or better yet as some console fanboys try to put it: Nobody plays on PC than who is buying?

PC Gaming was and always will be profitable. The problem is, developers don’t seem to understand it.

Drop the DRM

Digital Rights Management was invented to combat piracy. What it did instead is punished legit customers while leaving the pirates with a better copy. GOG.com made it clear; people buy the games once they feelsecure. Drop the DRM at least for the single player. Witcher 3 shipped DRM free on the PC and is doing well. That’s a triple A game right there.

Stop pushing out broken console ports

I remember the days when consoles got PC ports and not the other way around. Everyone was happy. Now that greed has taken over and games became commercialized as opposite to art broken console ports are overtaking the industry. Don’t blame the players when your product is broken. Batman Arkham Knight.

Optimize and embrace PC gaming features

Use the PC exclusive features like Moding, configuring and power to make the best port possible. We PC gamers want the game to feel like a PC game and not a console Rom running on an emulator. Few developers used to strip the game down when porting it to PC removing the basic configuration settings. Car manufacturers customize their cars for each region, so must the developers. Make the best port for each platform.

Use the existing Marketplace

Many developers are trying to push their version of Steam. Everyone wants a peace of the pie. Use the biggest market of all to sell your game instead of pushing your unfinished restricted platform namely uPlay. Competition is good and what not but not when its against the consumer.

……….

PC Gaming is growing and attracting more players than ever. Take it serious and your games will sell.

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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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Latest life updates

As you probably guessed, I took a break from blogging gaming related stuff – I did post my late Resident Evil Revelations 2 review though- and instead focused on writing gaming guides for GameFAQs.com, posting on my personal blog/political stuff on Medium and gaming itself.

What am I playing?

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Yes I played the PC version to death and mixed out the available level ups and weapons upgrades. Why get the Xbox One version? I like having a physical copy of the game so I can play it whenever I want after/if the digital service goes under in the future. The more important reason is I have my brother and friend joying in, triple the fun. I was never a online shooter guy even though I own counter strike and call of duty but this game got it right. Very underrated game to be honest.

Speaking of Titanfall, my keyboard and mouse are getting old and I’m thinking of an upgrade. Guess my wish list?

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While they both look nice, the keyboard cost around $118.99. That is pretty expensive although not as expensive as what I seen in the local computer shops not to mention that I will be spending this much on something that wont even improve the frame rates of any game but is nice to have. Wish list for now until I find something better or this goes on sale.

On the PC side, I’m in the last chapter of Resident Evil Revelation and as my review stated; this game is amazing. The best since Resident Evil Code Veronica. The game play is creepy and controls are tight. Even the enemies are somehow as good as zombies and this is just a budget game. Looking forward to Resident Evil 7 although I wont get my hope up.

Capcom did a huge mistake by going in the action direction when it comes to Resident Evil and paid the price with lower sales except RE4. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

Moving on to my YouTube gaming channel; I’m waiting for my ordered Blue Microphones Snowball to arrive. Decent video with bad sound will ruin the whole thing, and I though that HD video is the ultimate king.

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No, I am not ditching blogging as writing is something I enjoy and did/do for over 15 years even though I never called myself a writer. The gaming channel is something I always wanted to do to reach bigger audiences and more personal touch as opposite to blogging.  Yes blogging is still king when it comes to info and what not so its not going anywhere anytime soon.

So what have you all been up to these days?

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Resident Evil Revelations 2 Review

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First of all I know I’m very late to the part. Like many Resident Evil fans, I kinda lost interest in the new RE games -after RE3 to be exact- but bought the game regardless on steam. Now that’s out of the way let’s get into the quick review.

The game is amazing! Not as the old ones but better than Resident Evil 6 and 5. The atmosphere is creepy and you are actually facing a scary zombie like enemies instead of the lame plagas.

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The characters swapping from Resident Evil Zero returns to form an even better connection and tag moves. Basically, you control two characters -one at a time- and must make them work together to un locks things and what not. Don’t be fooled by the younger partners and the lack of guns, each plays an important rule and Resident Evil was never about a huge gun collection.

Get back into the atmosphere, the game takes place in an abandoned Soviet Union island. The places resemble actual towns in Ukraine – where I was born- and the speaking parts do add into the story. For the first time, I was actually creeped out by the boss and the main story which was not 10/10 but a creepy one nevertheless.

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Yes the PC version has a problem that I personally encountered; the out of sync story videos. Other than that, the game looked and ran fine with a 50/60 FPS considering I’m still using Core to Quad CPU and a budget GTX 750 at a 720 resolution. Capcom is really a hit and miss when it comes to porting their games. Resident Evil 5 and 6 ran perfectly while 4 ultimate HD and remastered had slow downs.

Overall, the game is great and will bring back memories of the old ones. Get it for your favorite platform and enjoy.

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Resident Evil 2 Remake is official, but

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The awaited remake is finally official after a group of modders attempted to complete the job by themselves, great news and I am personally happy to see the project officially started but there are a few things that I’m worried about.

While Capcom is officially making the remake, the original director as well as a number of stuff who worked on the original is no longer there. And with the new guys and director taking over as well as the disasters Resident Evil 5, 6 and revelation I’m not entirely sure I want these guys to handle my childhood dream.

The Original remake was awesome and I was wishing for Resident Evil 2 and 3 to be handled the same way by the same guys. To be honest, I want the new remake to have an option for the tank controls. Keeping it old school with an option for the new generation although I’m not sure if the new generation even played the original to appreciate the remake.

All in all, I want a good old school game, not insane graphics and a bad game. Capcom, this is your chance to make things right so please do it.