The State of Online Gaming Address

Just like the president giving the presidential "State of the Union" address I'm here to talk to my fellow gaming community supporters about a topic of interest. I'm here to talk about something that concerns us all. That topic of discussion being the state of online gaming. I know that some of you out there in vidya game land want to believe that the servers, and the netcode are our only problems in the competitive gaming scene. If we were to be honest about it, and look deeper though we'd realize that that's not the case. While netcode, and servers could use improvement it's the majority of players who are out to grief the online gaming populous who are mostly at fault for the poor conditions of the online offerings. The trolling is worse than it's ever been, and the cheating even more so. It's gotten to the point where these grief mongers are openly displaying such behaviors without repercussion, because no one is doing anything about the problem. The gaming community is passive about the situation as are game, and console moderators. They think if they ignore it, it'll just go away. The sad truth is that you can only ignore a problem for so long before it becomes so in-your-face that it's undeniable. I think it's best that we all work together to bring this problem into the view of the moderators before it gets to that point. Otherwise we'll be left playing a mess of a game that's not worth playing.

Baseball Riot (PS4)

Taking inspiration from mobile game franchises like "Angry Birds" 10tons released a wacky sports trajectory game which follows closely a has-been baseball player named Gabe who was injured during a season's playoffs. Gabe (the protagonist) ended up taking a baseball to the knee (enter Skyrim joke here), and in doing so became unable to play due to his unfortunate injury. After his mishap in the major leagues, Gabe fell to the wayside as newspaper tabloid material like most famous has-beens do. He was continuously shunned by his critics while his misadventures in the real world were documented in full for readers of said newspaper to gawk at. Following his forced retirement the team which Gabe had played for was ultimately bought out by a chemical corporation known as "Explodz", and was renamed the "Electrolytes" for obvious reasons. As the team became successful a problem emerged regarding the popular Explodz beverage which was consumed by players, and fans alike. This beverage was causing the fans, and players to become enraged for some unknown reason. Stepping up to the plate (pun intended) Gabe decides to take on the role of the hero, and uses his pro league batting skills to bat the bejeezus out of those who were afflicted by the effects of the sinister soda. It is his way of getting back into the league, and reclaiming his rightful place with the team he was once a crucial part of. Whether, or not he achieves this goal is up to you!

Gemini: Heroes Reborn (Xbox One)

So ... I had honestly never heard of this game until Imperative Entertainment's PR contacted me about doing a review of it. I didn't have a clue as to what the game was about beyond what I saw in the trailer, which I viewed prior to accepting the assignment. I didn't know that it was tied to the "Heroes" series, or the newly introduced "Heroes Reborn" series. After figuring this out though it did peak my interest quite a bit as I was a fan of "Heroes" back when it was popular, and in the headline news. I was actually curious to see how a game modeled after a TV series would pan out since such film to game translations often times do not bode well with the gaming community. We all know that such games tend to be not all that great, and that movie adaptations outside of games like the LEGO re-imaginings are usually a lost cause in the eyes of gamers.

I definitely think Imperative Entertainment, and the studio known as Phosphor Games were bold in taking on this game project, because of the legacy tied to said gaming genre and the legacy of the TV series itself. While I did encounter some unfavorable things in my playthrough, and several bugs along the way "Gemini: Heroes Reborn" did actually do alright for itself, in the "indie" sense regardless of my concerns. Using the Unreal Engine 4 as it's graphics processor really helped to bring the fantasy world, and the characters therein to life, if only visually. Even the gameplay was functional enough to a point to enjoy. At the same time though the rushed plot, and poorly applied character context building kind of hurt the mostly impressive gameplay. Having spoken dialogue, and onscreen text that was so to the point, and without proper storytelling elements in place really did the game a huge disservice. In the end it could have been better than it was, but wasn't too terribly bad for an indie game featured on modern-day consoles. Before I get too far ahead of myself though let me explain the game's premise to you ...

Google+ Subscribers, Twitter Followers & Page Views

It is 2016, and I'm still getting turned down by the occasional misguided indie game developer. For some reason they think the Google+ subscriber widget that is on this blog reflects my total audience count, and traffic sources. This couldn't be further from the truth. What developers, publishers, studio & PR need to understand when entertaining one of my review offers is that the Google+ widget only reflects the Google+ subscriber count. Not my blog's following. Here at this blog I get traffic from multiple sources, one being that of my Google+ page which houses all of my reviews, and blog posts. While that is substantial enough in the way of page views you have to also factor in my Twitter follower count which has friends, and followers who see and click on every review link that I share there. Currently I'm over 3,000 in Twitter followers which is definitely not a low number. It may not be on par with celebrities, and other famous persons of interest, but if you do the math and add up the links that are read and shared by said followers things begin to multiply. Things add up. I was not lying when I said that my Google+ page is nearing the 3 million view mark. That in itself is traffic worth mentioning as Google+ only contains post from this blog. Furthermore other traffic sources that contribute to my viewer reach include various other journalist sites who have linked to my blog as well as my Youtube channel which catches a lot of attention for what I provide there.

Zen Pinball 2 - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (PS4)

Before I get into the thick of this review I thought I'd be courteous, and let you know that I don't intend on leaking any movie spoilers. From time to time I may reference characters, but at this point we pretty much know of all the main role-players. For those of you who are unaware, and who have not yet bought this latest Zen Pinball 2 DLC pack I think you'll be pleased to learn that there are two tables instead of the one previewed table that was shown in the teaser trailer. It is the usual packaged deal in that you'll be forking over $4.99 in PSN credit for the DLC instead of the cheaper price for the individual tables. Single tables usually cost $2.99 each. In comparison of the two DLC types I think there is a bit of a discount with this set's pricing. The question that remains though is if it's worth having at all?