NEWS | Week beginning Janurary 11th | Activison sued, Homefront finally gets a release date & Sony trademark fail

Good morning/afternoon/evening all! Welcome back to another video games new round-up! Let's get staright into it shall we?!

Activision sued

First up, Activision has been sued by the family of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi after their portrayal of the character in Black Ops 2.

Three of Savimbi's children filed a €1 million lawsuit after Activision's use of their father in the campaign mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Activison portrayed Savimbi as a 'barbarian' and a 'big halfwit'. 

"[He's portrayed as] a big halfwit who wants to kill everybody," prosecution lawyer Carole Enfert explained. In reality, she continued, Savimbi had actually been a political leader and strategist".

That's a big grenade launcher
you have there...

Savimbi was the leader of a rebel movement against Angola's communist-backed goverenment during the country's civil war, which lasted over 26 years and left over 500,000 civilians dead.

Savimbi appears in the campaign level 'Pyhrric Victory' where he appears as a friend of the player on the assualt of the government opposition. He encourages his troops to, and I quote "FIGHT, MY BROTHERS! FIGHT!" At least he know what he wants...

As expected, Activision have disagreed with the claims and claimed that Savimbi was portrayed as a 'good guy'. 

Activision have been sued for their portrayal of a character before. Again, in Black Ops 2, ex-Panama dictator Manuel Noriega himself complained that he was depicted as the "culprit of numerous fictional heinous crimes". He obviously wanted damages, and the lawsuit was dismissed. 

If you think about it, using a real life person in a video game without their permission is always going to cause problems, especially if you portray this character as a 'big halfwit'. Use your heads Activision!

Homefront finally gets a release date

Next up, Homefront: The Revolution finally has release date, and they are a little late to say the least...

Do you remember waaayyyyyyy back last year, specifically last March, where I listed the games I was most excited for in 2015? No? Well I'll leave a link here. 

Anyway, Homefront: The Revolution was one of them. The first Homefront was a fantastic game, with a great campaign mode and multiplayer mode that easily rivalled the Call of Duty and Battlefield games that were out at the time. Based on what the first Homefront gave us, the second is looking to impress...

...until it fell off of the face of the Earth, with no news being heard about the game for months.

Finally, yes finally, we have a release date! Developer Deep Silver came out earlier this week with a release date set for the 20th May for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Must be hot on that burning
car?

They also announced that Xbox users will be able to take part in an exclusive multiplayer beta, which launches in February. To gain access to the beta, you will need to secure a 'Xbox One Beta Token', which are to be given out via promotions closer to the time.

Along with the announcement of the release date and beta, a new trailer was released. Titled 'This is Philadelphia', the trailer shows off some of the new open-world FPS shooters Philadelphia setting, and I must say, it looks epic! 

The use of the open-world will definitely be a huge factor in conquering the 'Yellow Zone' as it is called in the trailer. You can see the use of phone bombs, explosive RC cars, as well as a hacking mini-game by the looks of it. All I'm saying is, I'm ready for May!

Here's the trailer if you haven't already seen it:

Sony trademark fail

Finally, it turns out Sony tried to trademark a very familiar term last October, and they failed miserably.

Many of who you are fans of video games, whether it be reading about them, playing them or watching them online, you have probably heard of the term 'Let's Play'. Yes, I know this sounds ridiculous, but Sony to trademark the term 'Let's Play'. 

Now this was never going to go down well with anyone. The term Let's Play is no longer just a term, it has turned into a whole new category of entertainment. Gaming YouTubers, small (like myself) or large (PewDiePie, Achievement Hunter, etc) all create gaming videos in the 'Let's Play' format. Record the gameplay alongside the commentary, mash it all together, and behold, you have a Let's Play vdieo. Sony didn't try and trademark a term, they tried to trademark a whole category.

It still remains unclear why Sony tried to trademark the term, could it be for a new service for the PS4? Or could it be a service that could rival Twitch in the near future? Who knows. Who really cares

Come on Sony, what are
you playing at?

for that matter. All I'm happy about is that Sony failed... for now.

Now the trademark attempt didn't fail due to the fact that Let's Play is such a widely used and common term. The attempt was turned down because there is a trademark already out there, the trademarking(??) the term Let's Play +could be confused with the already existing trademark. 

Let'z Play of America, a company based in Georgia filed to trademark the term 'Let'z Play' in 2013. The attempt was obviously successful, and because of that, Sony's attempt was dismissed because 'Let's Play' is too similar to 'Let'z Play'. I mean, there's only one letter different between the two.

Although Sony's attempt was rejected, they still have six months to appeal the decision, Whether they will or not is another matter. But for now, we are safe. For now...

Anyyyway, that's it for this week! What story stood out for you this week? Are you surprised that Activision were sued again? Will you be pre-ordering Homefront? Do you care that Sony tried to trademark Let's Play? Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)

NEWS | Week beginning Janurary 4th | Oculus Rift Price Revealed, PS5 On The Horizon? & The End Of Video Game Piracy?

Good evening all! It's time again for another news update! Let's get straight into it!

Oculus Rift Price Revealed

First up, the Oculus Rift will finally soon be made available to the public! However, there is a catch, and that catch being the price...

The prices went live on Wednesday, and needless to say, many were surprised by the steep £500 price tag which by the way, does not include the shipping costs. Ridiculous, I know!

For the steep £500 price tag you get the Oculus headset, sensor, cables, Oculus Remote, Xbox One Controller and Eve: Valkyrie and Lucky's Tale; both of which are bundled games.

The Rift will start shipping on the 28th March this year, with only one bundle being available to each

You want? Cough up the cash!!

customer. The rift will also be made available in 'limited locations' at 'select retailers' in April. Fortunately you won't be charged until the bundle ships, meaning a pre-order will be required in order to retrieve the headset. Oh, expect a shipping charge of around £30 too!

Another 'Oh', I forgot to mention the recommended specs to be able to run the bundle well! Quite simply, you'll need a decent PC!

Here are the specs in full:

• Graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
• Processor: Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
• Memory: 8GB+ RAM
• Output: Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
• Input: 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port
• Operating system: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey headed to Twitter to explain why the Rift costs so much...

@PalmerLuckey All the international prices are essentially the converted US price+required taxes, customs fees, etc.

— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 6, 2016

Do you agree with the cost? Is it too much are is the price right?

 PS5 On The Horizon?

Next up, can we expect to see the PS5 soon? An analyst reckons we just might!

Playstation consoles have always been huge successes, the PS2 for example is one of the best selling consoles of all time, and the PS4 is soon expected to hit the 100 million units sold milestone. Things are most certainly looking up for the PS4.

Do you want to see a new
Sony console soon?

However, as a business, Sony will soon have to look to the future, and well, you guessed it, the PS5 will probably be their answer! 

Now don't get your hopes up just yet, the PS5 is most definitely years away. The PS4 only came out a few years ago, and while people are still buying and using the console, there is no need to replace it. Though eventually, a time will come were technology will overtake the PS4, and it will be time for Sony to upgrade.

Michael Pachter, the analyst I mentioned earlier, thinks we may be seeing a new Sony console sooner than we think.

"I would be surprised if we had a next-gen console in 2018; we might have one in 2019. We will have one by 2020, so I think 7 years (for the PS4) is a lock. It will last longer than 5 years."

That may sound slightly confusing, but what he saying is that we will probably be seeing the PS5 by 2020. He thinks that the PS4 will last around 7 years in total before it is replaced with the PS5 and he is expecting the PS5 to last longer than 5 years.

Whether or not we do see the PS5 soon will remain to be seen. I still think that the PS4 has a lot left to offer, so it wouldn't make sense to replace it already. Releasing new consoles is extremelty expensive, so Sony will want to wait as long as possible before doing anything drastic!

The End Of Video Game Piracy?

Finally, could we soon be seeing the end of video game piracy?

In all honestly, I always thought that video game piracy was inevitable, however, the founder of a Chinese hacking forum '3DM' who goes by the name of 'Phoenix' thinks that video game piracy could soon be coming to an end.

"I BE STEALIN' YE GAMEZ"

Only two AAA titles have so far managed to withstand any attempts at cracking them. Those being FIFA 16 and Just Cause 3. How you ask? Well I shall tell, whether you understand or not is another matter, because I certainly don't!

Basically, both games use two layers of encyrption, both of which are called Denuvo. Denuvo protects the DRM within the game, meaning it is a hell of a lot harder for hackers to breach the games' code.

Phoenix recentely said:

"Recently, many people have asked about cracks for Just Cause 3," Phoenix writes. "The last stage is too difficult and Jun nearly gave up, but last Wednesday I encouraged him to continue.

"I still believe that this game can be compromised. But according to current trends in the development of encryption technology, in two years time I’m afraid there will be no free games to play in the world."

So the big hacker dude has said it himself, video game piracy is dying. It was bound to happen eventually, right?

So that's it for this week! What did you think of this week's news? Will you be purchasing the Oculus? Do you want the PS5 soon? Do you pirate video games? Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)

NEWS | Week beginning December 28th | Steam Security Blunder, Star Wars Sells Big & Dedication Or What?

Hello all! Welcome back! It's been a while, hasn't it? Well I am back with another news update! Oh how I've missed this!

Steam Security Blunder

First up, do you remember my last news update, when I reported on how Steam had stepped up their security in a number of different ways to help counter hackers and the likes? Well it looks like they've done the hackers job for them...

Early last Friday, Steam accidentally leaked account details on over 34,000 users. Yes, somebody at Valve seriously goofed.

So here's how it all went down. On high traffic sites or services, such as Steam, it is common that the site or service will 'cache' the most visited pages on the site, such as the Home page or Store page. This is so that the site doesn't have to recreate the same page hundreds of thousands of time per minute, meaning the page will load much quicker as a result. Some sites also cache account information too, but you are the only one who will receive the information back. 

Apparently the Steam store came under attack by hackers trying to DDOS the service. This then meant

Were you affected by
the blunder?

that Steam's counter-DDOS measures swung into affect, and somehow changed the caching process behind-the-scenes. meaning that instead of users only seeing the Home page or their own personal details, they saw the private details of other users instead. Oops. However, as it was only a cached page, no changes could be made to the information by other users, they could only view the account information. Now this might not seem as bad, but the Accounts page on Steam shows your Card details, Home address, Phone number, Email, etc, meaning if you were one of the unlucky 34,000 who had their account information leaked, it is possible that someone now knows some of your personal details.

Valve recently released a statement explaining the whole incident:

• "Early Christmas morning (Pacific Standard Time), the Steam Store was the target of a DoS attack which prevented the serving of store pages to users. Attacks against the Steam Store, and Steam in general, are a regular occurrence that Valve handles both directly and with the help of partner companies, and typically do not impact Steam users. During the Christmas attack, traffic to the Steam store increased 2000 per cent over the average traffic during the Steam Sale.
• "In response to this specific attack, caching rules managed by a Steam web caching partner were deployed in order to both minimise the impact on Steam Store servers and continue to route legitimate user traffic. During the second wave of this attack, a second caching configuration was deployed that incorrectly cached web traffic for authenticated users. This configuration error resulted in some users seeing Steam Store responses which were generated for other users. Incorrect Store responses varied from users seeing the front page of the Store displayed in the wrong language, to seeing the account page of another user.
• "Once this error was identified, the Steam Store was shut down and a new caching configuration was deployed. The Steam Store remained down until we had reviewed all caching configurations, and we received confirmation that the latest configurations had been deployed to all partner servers and that all cached data on edge servers had been purged.
• "We will continue to work with our web caching partner to identify affected users and to improve the process used to set caching rules going forward. We apologise to everyone whose personal information was exposed by this error, and for interruption of Steam Store service."

The store is now back up and running, but people are now feeling uneasy when using Steam and the store, and honestly, who can blame them!

Star Wars Sells Big

Next up, that big new Star Wars game you ma have heard about, yes, I'm talking about Battlefront! Well apparently, the sales figures have come in for it's first two months, and by the looks of it, it did pretty well.

According to the figures, Star Wars: Battlefront sold a whopping 12 million copies in it's first two months. Battlefront sold around 6 million copies seperately in the month of November and December and as each copy cost around £40/$55, that means Star Wars: Battlefront made around £450 million/$660 million in total. Good job EA!

Don't mess with the Trooper...

Now, unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that Star Wars: The Force Awakens' came out in late December. Putting two and two together, it's easy to see that the new movie definitely had a part to play in generating sales for the game, as well as Christmas and such.

According to sales figures, Battlefront was third in the overall sales for November, behind Fallout 4 and Black Ops 3. So it's safe to say that Battlefront has done well for itself, especially as the game was targeted to reach 13 million copies sold by March 2016!

Battlefront is a great game, and I would definitely reccomend purchasing it! As you may remember, I did post my Top 3 games of 2015 a couple of weeks ago. Before I wrote that post, I hadn't played Battlefront. Now after playing it, I most definitely believe that Battlefront would give both Rainbow Six: Siege and Rocket League a run for their money! What do you think? Let me know in the comments down below!

Dedication Or What?

Finally, one Japanese gamer may have just won the award for most dedication (if there is one) after leaving his SNES turned on for twenty years to ensure he didn't lose his save game data!

The unamed gamer, who goes only by his Twitter handle @UMIHARAKawase insisted on leaving his SNES on after realising that if he turned it off, he would probably lose his save data that he had worked so hard on getting.

The SNES plugged in and ready
to go...

The game in question, Umihara Kawase (so that's where he got his Twitter handle from!!) is a platforming game that was released way back in 1994. He recently tweeted a picture (right) of his SNES still running with the Umihara Kawase game cartrdige still plugged into the console, with the console running.

Siliconera explains why the fan needed to keep his console running to ensure he does not lose his save data.

"The reason he has had the game running this long is that he doesn’t want to lose his save data. To explain, some old game cartridges used Static RAM (SRAM) with lithium-ion batteries. This meant that the cartridge could hold your saved data with the SRAM as long as the battery stayed charged. "

So it turns out that Umihara Kawase is one of those older cartridges that will eventually lose all of your data if the battery loses it charge, therefore, the fan had to ensure his console remained turned on to keep the cartridge fully charged so he loses none of his save data.

He does also mention that he had to switch off the console once when he moved, but managed to plug the console in again before the cartridge lost it's charge!

So that's all for this week! What do you think of this week's news? Were you affected by the Steam security blunder? Have you played Battlefront yet?? Do you think you'll ever be as dedicated as that fan was? Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!

Hello all!

I won't be posting this weekend as it's christmas and all, plus I have work...

BahHumBug.

Anywayyy I hope you all have a great day and enjoy your gaming related gifts!

Much Love,

Connor!

P.S. Apologies for not posting last weekend, I had work everyday last weekend and I was knackered when I got home, so I basically fell asleep as soon as I got home!

I hope you all can forgive me!!

NEWS | Week beginning December 7th | UK Charts, Steam Security Step-Up & New Xbox Coming Soon?

Greetings all! I'm back! I felt like turd last week, so I decided it was probably a good idea to rest up and get better. I am now better, so things shall continue as normal!

UK Charts

First up, this weeks UK Chart has been released, and personally, it looks a little strange...

Most of the games on the list deserve to be on the list, well, depending on what type of games you prefer to play, it's just the order that the games are in that confuses me. Here, have a look at the list...

1. FIFA 16
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
3. Star Wars Battlefront
4. Just Cause 3
5. Fallout 4
6. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege
7. Minecraft: Story Mode
8. Grand Theft Auto 5
9. Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection
10. WWE 2K16

Can you see why I'm confused? November, as always, has been a big month for releases. For

Is it 'James' or 'Hamez'?

example, games like Fallout 4, Star Wars Battlefront and Black Ops have graced our faces this month. We've also seen games like Just Cause 3 and Rainbow Six: Siege come out this month. All great games that have sold well and deserve to be on the list.

A couple of the games on the list confuse me. I honestly never saw WWE as a big video games franchise. GTA come out a good two or three years ago, but apparently it still sells well. And FIFA? I love FIFA as a series, but I'm not quite sure how it's top of the list, especially after all the big games we've had released in November, but hey, what do I know?

Steam Security Step-Up

Next up, Valve has announced that they plan to step up security on Steam after finding that around 77,000 accounts are hacked into each month.

Valve wrote earlier in the week that they plan to increase the security measures on their PC gaming platform Steam to try and fend off hackers on the Steam Community Market.

"These are not new or naïve users; these are professional CS:GO players, reddit contributors, item traders, etc. Users can be targeted randomly as part of a larger group or even individually. Hackers can wait months for a payoff, all the while relentlessly attempting to gain access. It's a losing battle to protect your items against someone who steals them for a living.

"We can help users who've been hacked by restoring their accounts and items, but that doesn't deter the business of hacking accounts. It's only getting worse."

For those of you who use Steam regularly, you may have noticed a big banner advert along the top of Steam, advising users to install the new Authentication App. The new app is one of many efforts created by Valve to help counter the hacker threat online. The app uses a system known as 'two-factor authentication', which means that two seperate devices are used when logging into to your account and confirming your identity.

"Two-factor authorisation is the use of a separate device to confirm your identity". "The security of this system is based on moving that step from your PC to a device a hacker can't access, such as your smartphone. PCs can be easily compromised, therefore a PC-based authenticator would not provide better security than a password or email authentication."

Go download it! Now! Do it quickly!

So basically, it means you have to log into your account on PC, then go through the Authentication App and do the same thing so Valve knows that you are you, and not an imposter. As an added bonus to not losing your precious Steam account, Valve has also offered users who download and use the app discounts on their Steam Community Market purchases. Another advantage to downloading the app!

If that's not enough, Valve has also added a couple other measures juuust to make sure everyone who isn't using the app is also protected. They include:

• Anyone losing items in a trade will need to have a Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator enabled on their account for at least 7 days and have trade confirmations turned on. Otherwise, items will be held by Steam for up to 3 days before delivery.

• If you've been friends for at least 1 year, items will be held by Steam for up to 1 day before delivery.

• Accounts with a Mobile Authenticator enabled for at least 7 days are no longer restricted from trading or using the Market when using a new device since trades on the new device will be protected by the Mobile Authenticator.

  If you don't already have or use the Authenticator App, go and get it and start using it. Otherwise, trading between friends and other Steam users will become a slow, frustrating process. Valve however claims that the extra time that will be taken between trades will give both users and Steam time to discover that an account has been hacked and recover the lost account. Not all bad then, eh??

I'd suggest reading the full post published by Steam to gain a full understanding of the new security measures added.

Story Credit: Kotaku

New Xbox Coming Soon?

Finally, it looks like we will be seeing another Xbox console in the future, whether or not we will see it soon remeains to be seen.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer was asked in an interview by The Verge  whether or not Xbox will still maintain a physical presence or whether the platform will be concentrating on the app marketplace in the future. 

The future is bright
it seems...

"No," Spencer says, "I fully expect that you’ll see another console from us. Our best customers are Xbox console customers, and I want to keep those people engaged both on the Xbox One and anything we might do in the future. I’m 100 percent committed to that."

"I don’t want to dilute what the Xbox console customer feels," says Spencer. "I want to expand what we’re able to do for more customers."

Many have been predicting that the current generation of gaming consoles will be the last. With Spencer saying otherwise will definitely shut people up. Physical gaming consoles, like the Xbox One and PS4, will be around for a long long time to come. The sales of physical gaming consoles will continue to increase and increase, especially as technology advances and new bits of tech are being added and tweaked. Consoles will only get better and better, and that's most definitely a good thing!

So that's it for this week, what did you expect of this weeks news round-up? Did the Top 10 Chart for this week surprise you? Are you using the Steam Authenticator App? Do you want another generation of video game consoles? Let me know in the comments down below!

See you guys next week, and thanks for reading!

Connor :)

COUNTDOWN: My Top 3 games of 2015!

Good evening guys, how are you all doing today?

As you've probably already guessed, this isn't going to be my usual news update. I've been doing those for a long while now without switching it up. I think the last time I posted something different was around June/July time, after E3.

Therefore, today, I will be giving you guys my Top 3 games of 2015! We're nearing the end of November now, so all the major games have been released. So, I'm going to go over the games I've played this year and give you guys my Top 3 games of the year!

Enjoy :)

3. Rainbow Six Siege (BETA)

Yes, I know this isn't technically out yet (release date December 1st) however, the beta was fantastic! It was a refreshing experience from the usual shooter/FPS games that come out nowadays. Most FPS games are very linear, 'go over hear, pick this up, shoot this guy.' Good job!, however it doesn't actually take much effort or thought to play these.

Rainbow Six Siege however does take some thought, and quite a bit of it too. Well, of course, you can run in, guns blazing and attempt, and probably fail, to kill the enemy. The 'proper' way to play Siege is too think about how you're going to play the situation out.

For example, as a Defender in Siege, you have to defend either a certain area of the building you're in

This is Rook. He's a big guy.
Don't mess with him.

or two sites. You can do this in a number of different ways, and these ways depend on what Operator you choose. For example, there's Castle, who can barricade walls with kevlar barricades, making them very difficult to destory. Another example being Rook (my personal favourite). He's a big, heavy dude running around in Kevlar armour with an LMG, shredding enemies as he goes. His special ability is that he can drop his special kevlar armour for his buddies, so the whole team can be just as big and strong as you!

So, obviously, if one of your team-mates picked Rook and another picked Castle, the Castle dude can barricade all the walls and lock everyone in, and the Rook dude can give everyone armour and buckle down with his LMG. If anyone even attempts to break in and secure the site, they're going to get shredded. 

As an Attacker, you have to do the opposite of the Defender, who knew?! 

You start the round controlling a little remote controlled drone. From there you can drive around the map and find both the enemies and the bomb site. After about 20 seconds, you will gain control of your character and you can go hunt the Defender scum. 

Again, much like with the Defenders, it takes time to think about what you want to do. Again, you can run in and try and kill everyone with no tactics or skill whatsoever. Buuuut, if you want to play the game how it's meant to be played, tactics are required. 

SSSQQQUUUUAAADDDDDD

Again, there are Operators. One example is Sledge. Sledge is a total badass. His special ability is that he has a sledgehammer. He can destroy pretty much anything with his sledgehammer. Cool right? Another example being Twitch. Twitch has a little drone, much like the camera drone that Attackers start with, however, the Twitch drone can deliver little shocks that can, well, shock enemies, as well as disable traps. Tactics can be put into play here. 

The Twitch dude can send his drone in, confuse the enemies, give them a little shock. Then, the Sledge guy can destroy the wall, and everyone else can shred the enemies. 

The pvp gamemode is great. Either protect/capture the objective or kill everyone on the other team. Very simple, yet things can get very complicated, and that's what I like. It has such a simple concept, yet you can get so tactical about how you're going to play each round. It requires thought. Which I like. As I said, Rainbow Six Siege can change the way FPS' are played and made, and in all honesty, I hope things do continue in this way. The future looks bright, and this is why Rainbow Six Siege makes it to Number 3 on my list!

2. Rocket League

Rocket League is one of those games that comes out of nowhere. Nobody had really heard of the game or even knew that it was in development. But when it was eventually released on the PS4, it took the gaming community by storm.

Rocket League is the spiritual successor to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. A bit of a tounge twister, I know.
Unlike Rocket League, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars scored very mediocrely, only achieving scores of 67/100 on Metacritic and 6.5/10 by IGN. Not really worth talking about...

Broom Broom

Rocket League however is something different altogether though. Well, technically, it's actually very similar. You know, with the whole car football shenanigans and the likes.
What I mean is that the game has been upped. I guess this could be down to the fact that Rocket League has been created on a nice, next-gen engine, meaning not only does it look a lot better than it's predecessor, it plays a lot better too.

I was very surprised upon booting up Rocket League at how well it played. I was expecting a lot of lag, screen tearing, etc, etc. It was a new game at the time, so obviously, you would expect some small issues early on. However, it was super smooth! The only lag I experienced was due to other players with a poor internet connection.
The gameplay is also fantastic. Again, it runs smooth and the only kind of lag I experienced was due to other players with poor internet connection.
The premise of the game is simple. The team who scores the most goals in 5 minutes wins. It's football in rocket powered cars. Unlike actual football, you can blow your opponents up, do flips, boost and fly in the air, and most importantly, wear hats...

This car has a shark fin!!

Yes, you can wear hats. The level of customisation available in Rocket League is outstanding.You can also attach a range of different antenna's, as well as change the body, paint and wheels of your vehicle. No two vehicles look identical.
You'll be in a game with your basic van type vehicle, and see a guy on the other team with a vehicle even worse, which makes you feel slightly better about your creation.You'll then see another guy with a snazzy sports car with a sleak black paintjob. At that moment you realise, that's what you want. It gives you something to works towards. The unlocks in the game are completely random, meaning you'll never know what you'll get after completing a game.

And that is why I love the game. It gives it replay-ability, if that's a word? You want to keep on playing. Grinding and grinding, until eventually you unlock that flag or hat you've always wanted. Then you set yourself a new goal. You just want to keep on playing. The fact that it keeps on bringing me back, again and again, is why it earns the number two spot in my list!

1. Fallout 4

I'm pretty sure you guys already knew what my number one would be before you even looked at this post.

Yes, of course it's Fallout 4! What else would it be?!

Fallout 3 came out 7 years ago, and it's been a long wait for another great game from Bethesda (Fallout New Vegas was developed by another company and I'm not overly fond of Skyrim). Fortunately, for both you guys and I, Fallout 4 has not disappointed!

Both Fallout 3 and New Vegas were relatively bleak. Fallout 3 had that green tint, New Vegas had that brown tint, as well as the occasional light show when you entered The Strip. Fallout 4 has completely changed how we see the Fallout series. No longer is it bleak, dark and depressing, the scenery and locale actually has colour! Whether it be in the market of Diamond City or the streets of Boston, you see colour! At first, I wasn't too sure if I liked the colour. I felt that it took away from the desperate atmosphere that the Fallout series is meant to have. 

Instead of taking away from the atmosphere, Fallout 4 has completely changed the way I see the nuclear apocalypse though! The two previous Fallout installments were undeniably bleak. Fallout 4 has somehow made the nuclear apocalypse seem rather appealing...

Trust me, it's not as easy as
it looks!

For example, the new building mechanic added into Fallout 4 has given the game a new spin. Now, not only can you explore and set up shop in the ruins of builidngs, you can create your own settlements and give the people of the Boston wasteland a home. Take Sanctuary for example. The first town you venture into after you escape the vault. It looks, well rather beaten and bruised. Collect a bundle of scrap and other wasteland rubbish, and you can turn the ruins into a bustling town again, with settlers, traders, markets. Whatever you like. You can finally leave your mark on the world, in a more creative and constructive way!

Pre-launch people were worried about the map size of Fallout 4. There were reports that you could walk from one side of the map to the other in around 10 minutes. All I can say is, why would you want to do that?!

The wasteland, much like all other Bethesda games, is massive and filled with a wide array of different locations, loot and surprises. You may start a new 5 or 6 saves, yet it's likely that you won't see everything that Fallout has to offer. That's because the world is so expansive. Not only is it likely that you will create a wide array of saves and characters, it's also likely that you won't ever play exactly the same way twice!

From when you leave the vault for the first time, you have a wide array of different choices. If you want to go to Sanctaury and start the early quests, you can do. If you want to skip straight to Red Rocket and grab Dogmeat, you can do. If you'd rather run around naked and use only your fists as weapons, you can do (although it is not recommended)! 

Awwwwwwww, look at the Doggie!!!

Unlike most games, the Fallout series, and most notably, Fallout 4 gives you so much choice. Most games nowadays are very direct and linear. You are given a set task, and you must complete it to progress on to the next stage of the level or game. This isn't the case with Fallout. If you want to follow the quests one by one, learning the stories of Boston as you go, then you can, If you'd rather play it your own way, skipping all the quests and bumbling your way through the game, you can do too. Fallout is such a wide open and expansive game, that allows the players to experience the game how they want too, not how others would prefer. 

And this is why Fallout 4 is my number one game of 2015! There have been some great releases this year, however, I don't think there really is any game that can push Fallout 4 off of the top the podium!

So, you've heard my top 3 games of 2015, what are yours? Do you agree with my list, or are there games you'd prefer to see on my list? Let me know in the comments down below!

Thanks for reading! I know this ins't my usual news update, but I thought you guys would prefer to see something a little different!

Again, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you guys next week!

Connor :)

NEWS | Week beginning November 16th | No Steam Flash Sales, Nuketown Advertising Issues & PS2 Emulation

Hello all, welcome back to my blog! This week, we have another video games news round-up! Let's get right into it I guess?!

 No Steam Flash Sales

First up, Valve announced this week that there will be no flash sales during the Autumn or Winter Sale periods on Steam. 

The Steam Autumn Sale will run from Wednesday 25th November at 6pm UK till Tuesday 1st December at 6pm, again UK time.

These dates come from ShackNews, who also believe that games on sale will only get one sale price during the sale period, and these prices will not vary.

All praise Lord Gaben?

Valve has since confirmed this after sending out notices to Steam developers and publishers,
confirming speculation.

"We'll still be highlighting your top games on the front page for 24-48 hour spans, but those products will stay at their most competitive discount, before and after being featured," Valve wrote.

"It's not a major change, but it does make the sale a lot more valuable for customers, and it allows us to build sale features that recommend your product all sale long, instead of just during its front page feature.

"For a brand new release, if you can't get approval for your best discount for the full length of the sale, that's OK and we can work on a plan for that game. But the vast majority of your catalog should be running its best discount for the duration of the sale."

So it looks like we can expect two upcoming Steam sales then, which is always good. The lack of flash deals and such is kind of a disappointment though. I like logging onto Steam during the sale and seeing a game I already own for much cheaper than I originally bought it for. Makes me feel real good...

No, but really, I like Steam Sales, they're great. My bank balance on the other hand may not agree with me though!

Nuketown Advertising Issues

Next up, Activision has admitted that mistakes were made in the handling of the Nuketown pre-order bonus for Black Ops 3.

Ahead of Black Ops' release a few weeks ago, Activision promised players that pre-ordered Black Ops 3 from GAME and Amazon would get Nuketown as a pre-order bonus. However, upon Black Ops' release, only players who pre-ordered the game from GAME were the ones who received Nuketown, even though Amazon were listed as a retailer who would be providing Nuketown to players.

Many players checked the Call of Duty website to ensure that Amazon were in fact a participating retailer in the Nuketown offer, originally, Amazon was listed as a participating retailer, however, shortly after the games release, the wording was changed on the site, removing Amazon as a participating retailer.

Did you miss out?

After all this, the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) has had to issue a response on the matter after they were contacted by a number of Black Ops 3 owners who were unaware that the offer had been changed and they had not received Nuketown.

"They [Activision] admitted that they did not intend for Amazon to appear as a choice of retailer on the website [that advertised the offer] and recognised that this could have caused some confusion among consumers for which they apologise."

"Having been made aware of the issues, Activision confirmed that they amended the UK ad on their website to remove references to the Nuketown offer and that they reviewed all online/social media messaging. They also said they'd been in contact with Amazon and asked that they redirect any consumer complaints to them."

"They assured us that they have reinforced their internal processes with a view to ensure the clarity of future offers of this nature."

Users affected by this have said that they have had success obtaining the map if they missed out by contacting Activision directly and making them aware of the problem. So, if you missed out on Nuketown due to the Activision blunder, go talk to them! They should give you the map you deserve!

PS2 Emulation

Finally, Sony announced earlier this week that they are working on an 'emulation technology' that can bring games from the classic Playstation 2 to the PS4.

Sony emailed WIRED early in the week and said that “We are working on utilizing PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation."

 

Currently, there are a few classic PS2 games already out on the PS4 using this emulation software. The original Star Wars Battlefront and a selection of Star Wars mini-games is being included in a bundle with a PS4 console.

Emulation is the process in which a specific computing environment is replicated, allowing older software to function on newer hardware. 

So simply, this emulation software creates an environment similar to the Playstation 2 so the game can function properly. The PS4 then handles upscaling the graphics and resolution, so the game looks and runs better than it would have on it's original console. Simple stuff right?

The Playstation 2 was unarguably the best console of it's generation, bringing us classics such as

Did you own a PS2?

God of War, Ratchet & Clank, Gran Turismo, etc, etc. I think Sony trying to bring these games back from the dead is move to counter the Xbox One's recent backwards compatability update, allowing owners to download select Xbox 360 titles onto the Xbox One's. 

If Sony manage to successfully emulate all those PS2 classics, it would not only increase the library of games available on PS4, it could also give them a slight edge over Microsoft. I mean, being able to play the classics all over again at a higher resolution is cool! Right? 

Just don't get your hopes up yet. We have only heard what Sony has told us, and nothing more. We haven't had any details, like when it'll be available to the public, the pricing of the service, etc, etc. For all w know, it may not even come out at all. Don't hold your breathes!

Annnnnd that's it for this week! What video gaming news stood out for you this week? Are you disappointed that there will be no flash sales during the Autumn and Winter Steam sales? Did you miss out on Nuketown? Are you looking forward to seeing this emulation technology? 

Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)