NEWS | Week beginning October 19th | GAME Blunder, Fallout & One Life

Good evening guys! It's that time of the week again! Let's get straight into it!

GAME Blunder

First up, we start with a short, and well, rather idiotic story.

UK based video game retailer GAME was hit with a nationwide gift card shortage after a manager in one of GAME's Scottish stores accidentally ordered the company's entire stock.

Were you affected by the gift card
shortage?

Customers at various stores around the UK were told that they simply could not buy gift cards or trade items in for store credit due to an 'error', and a pretty big one at that.

The issue is slowly being fixed, with GAME's website only stocking £25 and £50 gift cards, with the£10 version being unavailable still.

Many were worried that the company had again come under financial issues, much like the issues that occurred in 2012, when the company came under administration in 2012 and had to close down multiple stores around the UK as well as completely close similar video game retailer GAMEstation, that was owned by parent company GAME. A similair situation occurred, where gift cards were simply made unavailable during the time they were under administration.

As said, that is a pretty big mistake to make. Yeah, over-ordering stock could be slightly problematic, however, ordering the company's entire stock is a quite a massive mistake. I'm sure he was left very red faced!

Fallout

Next up, I have yet more Fallout news!

The day of reckoning is slowly coming upon us. Fallout 4 will soon be with us, After 7 long years of waiting, the next chapter of the Fallout series will be with us. Earlier this week, Bethesda Game Studios, the developers of Fallout 4, made the all important announcement that the game has 'gone gold'. 

When a game goes gold, it means the developers working on the game have done all that they can for the time being, and they feel it is ready to be sent to the presser to make millions of copies of the game. It is finally ready!

Oct 23rd - the bombs have fallen. Fallout 4 is complete. All 27 versions. pic.twitter.com/AwkWOoTEgt

— BethesdaGameStudios (@BethesdaStudios) October 23, 2015

Bethesda tweeted this earlier in the week, which is all the confirmation we need!

Don't mind if I do!

Now you might be asking, how can I appropriately celebrate the launch of Fallout 4? Well I might just have the answer for you!

Fallout is getting it's own brand of beer, thanks to a collaboration between Bethesda and Carlsberg UK.

If you go on Amazon and type in 'Fallout Beer' or simply click here, you can pre-order a case of 12 beers. The description reads:

"Fallout beer has been brewed using a unique blend of malted barleys combined with selected hops," the description reads. "A light coloured pilsner lager, with a refreshing zesty hoppy taste and a floral aroma."

Priced at £29.99 for a pack of 12, it may seem a little pricey, however, you can't really complain, it's Fallout Beer!

One Life

Finally, a new First-Person Shooter was added to the Steam Greenlight roster this week, and well, it's a little different to say the least...

The shooter, appropriately named 'One Life', permanently locks your account when you die.
Yes, you read that right. Once you die, you're done for good. The usually blue PLAY button in Steam greys out, and that's you done forever.

“One Life is the first multiplayer survival game with perma-permadeath. If you die, you will leave the game forever. Will you manage to survive in this harsh world full of dangers? Upgrade your battle truck and set off for hot spots with friends. Play with your own rules but remember: your every move can be the last one.”

Once you have been hunted by all of your online foes and have ultimately shot you to bits, they can either finish you off and end your One Life. Get it?! Because you only have One Life! Hahaha?!
No? Okay...

A typical FPS, or something
new?

Anyway, they can kill you, leave you to die, take you captive, etc, etc. The choice is theirs. If you want to take them captive and keep them as your slave for the rest of the time you're in the game, then you can. The decision is entirely yours.

Now, this game does cost. One Life has a $10 price tag. Yeah, that kinda sucks. You invest $10 into a
game only to die within the first 5 minutes and be locked out of the game forever? Not cool. As a result, developer Kefir! has implemented a spawning system, allowing the player to have full control over where they spawn and what you spawn with, within reason. I guess that sorta makes up for it?

Kefir! have also realised that once players die, there is nothing stopping them to make a new Steam account, re-purchasing the game and play as a new character. They do however hope that players honour the One Life system. I did it again! Another pun...
They said:
“Creating another account won’t be the easiest thing as the player will feel the loss of the character and the ability to playOne Life again on the emotional level.”

I'm honestly not too sure something like this will work. $10 isn't exactly much, however, the fact that there is a possibility that you could die instantly and lose all access to the game isn't definitely something worth thinking about. Maybe if the game was free, or at least, a lot cheaper. Otherwise, I'm not so sure it will catch on!

You can check the games Greenlight page here.

Anywho, that's it for this week! What did you think of this weeks news?
Were you affected by the GAME blunder? Will you be purchasing the Fallout beer? Does One Life sound appealing to you?

Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)