Do the big guys care about us consumers?

Video games are being released weekly, with the top AAA titles like Call of Duty and Battlefield being released annually. Each year these titles break records and set the bar even higher for the next iteration in the series. However, as these games get bigger and more elaborate, us as consumers seem to suffer.

The infamous, 'no-face' glitch in
Assassin's Creed Unity

One of the more recent examples being Assassin's Creed Unity. Prior to release, the game was getting good previews, with The Telegraph saying the game was going to be a "solid improvement on the well-established formula". However, many gamers found a wide variety of bugs and glitches when booting up the game. Some include faces disappearing off of characters, players falling through the map and players being able to climb invisible structures. These are just a few of the ridiculous glitches that feature in the latest Assassin's Creed.

Of course, as any good company would, Ubisoft has contacted purchasers of the game and has offered to compensate them for their troubles. Gamers who bought the game itself were offered an unreleased add-on for free and gamers who bought the season pass as well as the game were offered another game entirely, which was either the new 'Far Cry 4', or racing game 'The Crew'. 

The chief executive of Ubisoft Montreal & Toronto Yannis Mallat, said 

"Unfortunately, at launch, the overall quality of the game was diminished by bugs and unexpected technical issues." He then went on to say "I want to sincerely apologise on behalf of Ubisoft and the entire Assassin's Creed team."

Assassin's Creed was no where near finished when it was released, and gamers were paid to pay because of it. They did compensate customers, but is that enough?

Another example is microtransactions. Google defines microtransactions as "a business model where users can purchase virtual goods via micropayments." Very simply, a microtransaction is buying something in game using real money. Whether you're buying packs in FIFA, skins for your guns in CoD, cars in Forza, etc, etc. In some cases, microtransactions are harmless. Buying skins for your guns in CoD won't hurt anyone right? 

However, in most cases, many consider microtransactions as a form of cheating. One recent example being the new survival-horror game H1Z1. H1Z1 is a zombie survival game where players have to travel the post-apocalyptic wastes in search of weapons and supplies, while avoiding other players and the NPC zombies that roam the wastes. 

If only the view was this good...

Now, onto the problem. In H1Z1, you can buy crates with real money. These crates could contain anything from a hat to an assault rifle. Many consider this as 'pay-to-win', I mean hats... C'MON! 'Pay-to-win' means you can pay money to gain an advantage over your opponents and other players. Seeing as you start off the game with nothing, this feature angered many people. This whole caffuffle began eight months ago, when Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley said himself that the microtransactions in game will be 'fair'. He wrote on Reddit that the game "will NOT be selling guns, ammo, food, water... i.e. That's kind of the whole game and it would suck in our opinion if we did that."

Well good job John.

Gamers became so frustrated that SOE began refunding people who had bought the game, no questions asked.

So again, we were made to pay for their mistakes. 

But will this be the end of it? My guess is no. Microtransactions will always be around, as will broken games, whether you like it or not

Most games nowadays are released early access, meaning you pay for an unfinished game, you can then play this unfinished game, bugs n' all included. These kind of games are slowly making their way from the PC platforms of Steam and Origin, to the home consoles, meaning we're only just seeing the start of a new generation of 'early access'. Soon, most games will be early-access, and we'll all be paying for unfinished, broken games.

Something to look forward to I guess..

Thanks for reading!

Connor :)

Hacking. What's the deal?!

(Just a warning before you get reading. This post isn't just about video gaming, but it is more generalized, i'll be talking about a variety of things. Just letting you all know! :) )

Hacking. It happens all the time, everywhere, from the XBOX, to the Playstation to the PC. It can't be avoided.
You may be asking, "Why does hacking occur?", "Could I be affected?". Well you're probably not, but i'm going to tell you all anyway.

The seven year old hacker,
Betsy Davies

Sooo, why does hacking happen? Well that could be down to a number of reasons, first being, it's so easy to do! Anyone can do it now-a-days. You can watch tutorials online and learn how to hack within minutes. An example being a seven year old, named Betsy Davies, who hacked a network in under 11 minutes. She was asked by a top security company to watch an online tutorial and hack into the open network set up for her. She watched the tutorial and picked up the rest along the way, which is a bit ridiculous if you ask me! If a seven year old can do it, anyone with the slightest bit of computer know-how can do it, which is                                                              quite scary if you ask me.

A picture Lizard Squad tweeted out over the festive
period during the PSN and XBL outage

Another reason is simply because people get a kick out of it. As society continually grows and grows, we have very quickly started to rely on technology in our everyday lives. As we start to rely on technology, people find ways to mess with us and the technology that we use. A more recent example being the Lizard Squad hacking over the festive period. During the festive period, a hacking group known as Lizard Squad took down Playstation Network (PSN) and Xbox Live (XBL).  How I hear you ask? Well let me tell you! They did a thing called a DDOS. DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. Very simply, it's like refreshing a web page over a million times in a space of a few seconds. This causes the server that handles the webpage to crash, bringing down the site, or in this case, PSN and XBL with it. This meant that no-one could sign in and play their newly opened christmas games, which was a major bummer for gamers, including myself, who couldn't sign on to PSN for a good week.

Next on the list, "Could I be affected?". And quite simply, yes, yes you can. If you use a site or service like PSN or XBL, or anything like that, then a DDOS attack could stop you using that site or service for a few days or even weeks, depending on the severity of the attack.
A more personal attack however, such as an email hack, password hack, etc, would be big. You could lose your access to accounts, emails, and even your personal data. Hacking isn't something you guys can just brush off and sweep aside, it can happen to anyone and it is serious.

This is why, I, Connor from his blog, is giving you guys two, yes TWO FREE tips on keeping safe from the hackers.

1. Firstly, ensure you guys have internet security installed on your computers. People could easily hack into your computer (even a seven year old girl) and take your data from right under your nose. Internet security scans your computer and warns you if your computer has been breached, so if you haven't got it installed, go do it right now!
2. When buying online, both on a console or the computer, delete your details after you're done. This way, if a site or service you use gets hacked and data is stolen, all that could be stolen is your accounts email and password. Your card details will be safe!

I know they're only two tips, but they're free, so don't complain.

Anyway, you ever been hacked? What happened? How did you lose out? Was the situation resolved? Let me know the comments below!
I ask you, my readers, have

Thanks for reading,

Connor :)

Nostalgia. Is it really worth it?

Good evening all, today I wanted to talk about nostalgia. The question i'm asking today is, 'nostalgia, is it good or bad?'. 

Just before I get into it, if you unsure of what nostalgia means, Google defines it as "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past".

Now, you're probably asking yourself, "How can nostalgia be a bad thing?!".  And I'd agree, nostalgia is great. Revisiting old games can be a great experience, playing through levels that you remember so fondly and bring back such good memories. One of my favourite examples is Spyro: The Year Of The Dragon. The third installation in the Spyro franchise and the last Spyro game to be released on the Playstation One. TYotD scored a 91/100 on Metacritic and a 9.1/10 from IGN. Fair rating for a great game.

    

The game of my childhood

One of my most fond memories of the game is the skateboarding minigames. For those who never had the opportunity to play TYotD, there were skateboarding sections were you had to either collect dragon eggs (which was the main aim of the game), or exterminating lizards on the track to get a dragon egg as a reward. As a child new to video games, I hadn't yet had the opportunity to play any sort of skateboarding game, so being thrown into the thick of it in my favourite game at the time was amazing for me. I'd find myself sitting there for hours at a time doing the same track over and over again, doing halfpipe after halfpipe without a care in the world. Times were good back then...

Yesterday however, I set up my Playstation Two and booted up TYotD for the first time in years. Oh how I relived happy memories as the soundtrack bellowed through my TV's speakers. First level, called Sunny Villa, went well. I honestly couldn't remember the level but I got through it okay. It then all went to crap in the second level, named Cloud Spires. There was thing ONE JUMP that I couldn't master. It got so bad I almost rage quit (which is unbelievable seeing as I was playing a PS1 game released 15 years ago which was meant for young children). I'm not sure if it's just me, but I find that rather disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not disappointed in the game, I love the game! I'm more disappointed in myself. I'm allowing myself to get angry at a game I have so many fond memories of. Back in the day, when I was 5 or 6, I don't remember getting so frustrated over such a minuscule puzzle. Allowing myself to get angry at such a small puzzle means I am ruining my memories of the game and replacing them with feelings of anger and frustration, which obviously isn't a good thing. Does this mean I can no longer play the games of my childhood, simply because frustration takes over?

The Game Over screen I have seen
one too many times...

Another problem I faced is the gameplay. Video games at the time varied in terms of quality, some obviously better then others. In Spyro, to control the camera, you had to use the rear shoulder buttons, which for you guys who haven't had the opportunity to play the Playstation, are both L2 and R2. The camera also seemed to rotate itself when it felt like. Imagine trying to do a time challenge while the camera is doing what it likes! Not fun at all. Again, is this a case of replacing my previous fond memories with anger and frustration?

I ask you, my readers, do you enjoy visiting older games? Bringing fond memories of back is great and all, but do you worry about the problems that may arise from revisiting these older games? How do you feel about nostalgia towards video games

Thanks for taking the time to read this latest post. I'll try and get another post up later in week.

Until then, have a great week and enjoy any and all your video game shenanigans!

Connor :)